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Heterogeneity in cognitive functioning of schizophrenic patients evaluated by a lexical decision task
C Passerieux1, J Segui, C Besche
1INSERM Unité de Recherche U302, Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpétrière, Université René Descartes et CNRS, Paris, France.
Psychological Medicine
|December 24, 1997
Summary
Thought-disordered schizophrenia patients show a deficit in processing context, unlike non-thought disordered patients. This suggests impaired semantic information integration in schizophrenia cognitive processing.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Linguistics
Background:
- Schizophrenia's disorganization pattern, including formal thought disorders, is linked to deficits in integrating contextual information.
- This study investigates cognitive processing differences in schizophrenia, specifically focusing on contextual information integration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test the hypothesis that schizophrenic patients with thought disorders exhibit a deficit in processing context.
- To compare contextual processing between thought-disordered schizophrenics, non-thought disordered schizophrenics, and control subjects.
Main Methods:
- A semantic priming lexical decision task was employed.
- Participants included 22 schizophrenic patients (DSM-III-R) and 11 controls.
- Low-level verbal material structuration was used to assess semantic regularity processing.
Main Results:
- A significant difference in priming effect was observed across the three groups.
- Control subjects and non-thought disordered schizophrenics showed a priming effect for related word pairs.
- Thought-disordered schizophrenics did not exhibit a priming effect, indicating difficulty with semantic priming.
Conclusions:
- The findings support the cognitive heterogeneity within schizophrenia.
- The absence of a priming effect in thought-disordered schizophrenics suggests a deficit in post-lexical controlled information processing.
- This deficit specifically impacts the integration of semantic information.