Visual attention and symptoms in schizophrenia: a 1-year follow-up

Visual attention and positive and negative symptoms were assessed in a sample of inpatients with a relapse of schizophrenia and 3 months later during a period of relative remission. Visual attention was measured with the Continuous Performance Task (CPT) and the Span of Apprehension Task (SPAN). A previous report showed that in 59 schizophrenia subjects, poor visual attention was significantly associated with high levels of negative, but not positive, symptoms at the 3-month follow-up. Although symptoms improved significantly, the schizophrenia subjects' performance on the CPT and SPAN was relatively stable over time. In this follow-up study, symptoms were re-assessed 12 months (n = 40) after the acute relapse. There were no associations between attention at 3 months and negative or positive symptoms assessed at 12 months. These results appear contradictory to the hypothesis that deficits in visual attention are negative symptom-linked indicators.