Effects of cueing on immediate and recent memory in schizophrenics

Most recent studies of recall deficit in schizophrenia have varied the encoding context while the retrieval context has not been varied. Recall of an event, however, is the product of the memory trace and a retrieval cue. In the present study, nonparanoid schizophrenics, paranoid schizophrenics, depressives, and normal controls were presented categorized word lists, matched for difficulty, that were either cued or not cued at recall. Furthermore, recall was examined on a first, immediate trial and on a second, delayed trial after an intervening task. The results indicated that the interval between recall trials produced a differential deficit for both schizophrenic groups relative to depressives and normals. Two possible explanations for this deficit are deficient encoding processes or retroactive interference. The findings indicate that varying the retrieval environment can enhance the recall of schizophrenics and that future studies should manipulate both the encoding context and the retrieval context to determine whether the schizophrenic recall deficit is due primarily to encoding or retrieval dysfunction, or both.