Impacted and preserved sub-domains of cognitive control in schizophrenia

Cognitive control refers to the ability to dynamically guide behavior by maintaining goal context and filtering out irrelevant information. Cognitive control deficits are well-documented in people with schizophrenia (PSZ), but the degree of impairment varies considerably depending upon the type of control being assessed. The present study examined three domains of cognitive control-selective attention to context, rule switching, and response conflict management-within a single paradigm to characterize different facets of cognitive control dysfunction in PSZ. Thirty-eight PSZ and 35 healthy control subjects (HCS) completed a cued task-switching paradigm that required participants to make a button-press response to different features of a target stimulus (letter, number, or color) depending upon the location that the target appeared on each trial. Prior to target onset, participants were presented with a cue indicating which stimulus dimension would be probed. PSZ were able to utilize the cue as effectively as HCS; however, when the relevant target dimension switched between trials (thus requiring a different stimulus-response mapping), PSZ showed greater switch costs compared to HCS. Finally, PSZ showed modestly impaired response conflict management when the irrelevant stimulus dimensions of the target corresponded to a different (incongruent) response compared to the relevant stimulus dimension. These findings suggest that selective attention to context is mostly intact, but response rule switching and response conflict management are impaired in PSZ.