Anomalous self-experiences in cognition are negatively associated with neurocognitive functioning in schizophrenia

Anomalous self-experiences (ASEs) are disturbances in the subjective experience of the self and are common in people with schizophrenia. Theorists have suggested that ASEs may underlie the neurocognitive deficits that are also common in people with schizophrenia; however, few studies have empirically investigated the relationship between these variables. Thus, the current study aimed to determine whether self-reported ASEs, particularly disturbances in cognitive or mental experiences, are meaningfully related to neurocognitive performance in individuals with schizophrenia.

48 individuals with schizophrenia and 34 healthy comparison participants completed the Inventory of Psychotic-Like Anomalous Experiences (IPASE), which is composed of five subscales including disturbances in cognition, and the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB).

Participants with schizophrenia performed worse than controls on each MCCB domain and had higher ASE scores on the total IPASE and all five subscales. Only the IPASE-Cognition subscale was associated with cognitive performance. Specifically, IPASE-Cognition was negatively correlated with scores in attention, visual learning, reasoning, and working memory.

These results suggest that self-reported subjective disturbances in cognition may be meaningfully associated with several objectively-measured domains of neurocognition. Severity of ASEs may therefore be an important consideration when analysing the extent of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.