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Attention and masking in schizophrenia.
Laurence Lalanne1, André Dufour, Olivier Després
1U666, National Institute for Health and Medical Research, Strasbourg, France.
Biological Psychiatry
|November 1, 2011
Summary
Patients with schizophrenia show deficits in visual masking tasks, particularly when attention is divided. These attention deficits, not signal redundancy, likely explain their impairments in backward masking.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
Background:
- Schizophrenia patients exhibit deficits in visual masking tasks.
- The underlying mechanisms of these deficits remain unclear.
- Attentional effects on masking are well-established in healthy individuals but underexplored in schizophrenia.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of attentional effects in masking impairments in schizophrenia patients.
- To compare focused versus divided attention in patients and controls during masking tasks.
Main Methods:
- 18 schizophrenia patients and 18 controls performed forward and backward masking tasks.
- Tasks involved locating a single target (focused attention) or two targets (divided attention) in different hemifields.
- Redundancy gain was assessed by comparing same-hemifield versus different-hemifield target presentations.
Main Results:
- Schizophrenia patients replicated deficits in masking tasks with a single target.
- Control subjects showed greater benefit from focused attention compared to patients.
- Performance equalization between groups occurred in backward masking with targets across hemifields.
Conclusions:
- Attention deficits, rather than signal redundancy, are suggested to underlie backward masking impairments in schizophrenia.
- Findings highlight the significant role of attention in visual processing deficits in schizophrenia.
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