Gender differences in semantic facilitation and verbal recall in schizotypal personality disorder

Previous studies have found that individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) benefit less from semantic context in verbal recall than comparison (HC) subjects. This has not been systematically studied in individuals with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), a group that does not carry the confounding effects of chronic medication usage and/or hospitalization, but has a high genetic loading for SZ. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of context on verbal learning performance in men and women with DSM-5-defined SPD. The effect of semantic context on verbal recall was measured in 69 right-handed men and women with clinically-defined schizotypal personality disorder and 56 right-handed healthy controls. On a semantic facilitation task, subjects were asked to listen to and recall eight 10-word lists with increasing context, ranging from random order to text format. Verbal recall performance of male and female SPD subjects was contrasted with gender-matched HCs. Male SPD subjects benefited significantly less from context in verbal learning, while female SPDs performed similarly to controls. The current study examined the effect of gender and semantic facilitation on learning in clinically-defined SPD. The results are consistent with previous hypotheses of gender-specific left hemisphere dysfunction in male SPD, and provide further support for a primary deficit in early learning processes in this population.