Use of the speed accuracy trade-off to characterize information processing in schizophrenics and normals

Subjects performed a signal discrimination task under four conditions: normal pace, accuracy, speed, and SATO (equal effort to speed and accuracy). Characteristically, schizophrenics demonstrated decreased accuracy, poorer compliance, increased total response time, and increased simple reaction time. Surprisingly, central processing time (decision time) was equivalent. Analysis of processing resource allocation identified significant group differences only under the SATO condition. Here, controls balanced attentional resources but patients worked almost exclusively for speed. Under conjoint performance conditions, patients apparently minimize categorical processing time at the expense of accuracy. These data are interesting as they identify specific circumstances under which schizophrenics manifest an attentional deficit.