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Updated: May 23, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
Published on: February 1, 2012
Is there an affective working memory deficit in patients with chronic schizophrenia?
Nicola Mammarella1, Beth Fairfield, Valeria De Leonardis
1Department of Neuroscience and Imaging, University of Chieti, Italy. n.mammarella@unich.it
Abstract:
Research interest in affective working memory has rapidly grown in the last decade. In this study we investigated working memory functions for affective and neutral words in a group of 22 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 22 healthy controls. In particular, participants were administered the operation working memory span task in which affective and neutral words had to be remembered. Results showed that patients made significantly more intrusion errors, recalling off-goal information, and showed poorer long-term memory performance than controls. In addition, affective trials showed the largest number of intrusion errors. These results suggest that a general attentional control deficit, especially over affective information, may underly failures to remember in chronic schizophrenia patients.
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