The behavioural assessment of savouring in schizotypal anhedonia: The Verbal Fluency Test of Enjoyable Experiences (VFTEE)

Hedonic response is abnormal in negative schizotypy. Using self-report methods, Applegate, El-Deredy, and Bentall (2009) reported that schizotypal anhedonia was associated with a poor capacity to savour, where savouring is the ability to mentally rehearse past, present and future pleasant experiences. A behavioural measure of savouring, the Verbal Fluency Test of Enjoyable Experiences (VFTEE), was,developed, and reliability and validity were assessed. The VFTEE elicits memories and predictions of positive experiences, using ease of generation as an index of savouring ability. Sixty-seven students, who scored high and low on measures of negative schizotypy and hypomania, completed questionnaire measures of hedonic functioning. Evoked affect was assessed on four trials of the VFTEE and an incentivised card-sorting task. The VFTEE demonstrated good internal reliability. Correlation and regression analyses revealed stylistically different abnormalities in how hypomanic and negatively schizotypal groups savour behaviourally. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.