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Remembering the past and imagining the future in schizophrenia
Arnaud D'Argembeau1, Stéphane Raffard, Martial Van der Linden
1Cognitive Psychopathology Unit, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium. a.dargembeau@ulg.ac.be
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
|February 13, 2008
Summary
Patients with schizophrenia struggle to recall specific past events and envision future ones. These memory and future-thinking deficits are linked to positive symptoms, impacting their sense of self over time.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Psychiatry
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Schizophrenia is associated with a distorted sense of self-continuity over time.
- Temporal aspects of self-processing remain under-investigated in schizophrenia research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the ability of schizophrenia patients to generate specific mental images of personal past and future events.
- To explore the relationship between these abilities and clinical symptoms.
Main Methods:
- Schizophrenia patients and healthy controls were asked to generate specific mental images of past and future personal events.
- Performance was compared between groups.
- Deficits were correlated with positive and negative symptoms, and verbal fluency.
Main Results:
- Schizophrenia patients recalled fewer specific past events than controls.
- Patients were significantly more impaired in generating specific future events.
- These deficits correlated with positive symptoms but not negative symptoms or verbal fluency.
Conclusions:
- Schizophrenia patients exhibit significant impairments in recalling past and generating future specific episodic memories.
- These deficits may stem from difficulties in retrieving contextual details and a disturbed sense of subjective time.
- Findings suggest a link between episodic memory dysfunction and altered self-continuity in schizophrenia.
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