Visuomotor performance of schizophrenic patients and normal controls

The aim of the study was to explore the basic features of self-schema in persons with schizophrenia. Thirty two schizophrenic patients and 32 normal controls were asked to select personality trait words from a check-list that described themselves, themselves as they were five years ago, and what most people are like. Compared with the control group, participants from the experimental group chose significantly more adjectives that were common to descriptions of self and others, and significantly less that were common to self and past-self descriptions. These results suggest that schizophrenic patients experience their personality as changing over time much more than do healthy subjects. Moreover, their self-representation seems to be less differentiated from others-representation and less clearly defined than in normal subjects.

Download Full-text

Comparative behavioral and biochemical effects of tranylcypromine and cysteine on normal controls and schizophrenic patients

Life Sciences ◽

10.1016/0024-3205(70)90105-0 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 9 (18) ◽

pp. 1021-1032 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

N. Narasimhachari ◽

B. Heller ◽

J. Spaide ◽

L. Haskovec ◽

M. Fujimori ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Biochemical Effects ◽

Schizophrenic Patients ◽

Normal Controls

Download Full-text

Optimal linear weighting of eye tracking, CPT, and backward masking deficits in discriminating schizophrenic patients and normal controls

Biological Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/0006-3223(90)90096-k ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 27 (9) ◽

pp. 49

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Backward Masking ◽

Optimal Linear ◽

Schizophrenic Patients ◽

Normal Controls

Download Full-text

Negative Features, Retrieval Processes and Verbal Fluency in Schizophrenia

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.163.6.769 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 163 (6) ◽

pp. 769-775 ◽

Cited By ~ 170

Author(s):

Heidi A. Allen ◽

Peter F. Liddle ◽

Christopher D. Frith

Keyword(s):

Verbal Fluency ◽

Chronic Schizophrenic ◽

Retrieval Processes ◽

Schizophrenic Patients ◽

Normal Controls

Twenty chronic schizophrenic patients, ten matched normal controls and nine depressed controls performed categorical verbal fluency tasks for three minutes each on five separate occasions. On each occasion the schizophrenic patients generated significantly fewer words than the controls. Comparison of the different occasions showed that the schizophrenic patients had as many words available in their inner lexicons but were inefficient in retrieving them. The schizophrenic patients also generated fewer clusters of related words and more words outside the specified category. Reduced ability to generate words while the lexicon remained intact was more marked in patients with negative features. Patients with incoherence, in contrast, were more likely to produce inappropriate words. We propose that both poverty of speech and incoherence of speech reflect problems in the retrieval of words from the lexicon. To cope with these problems patients with poverty of speech terminate their search prematurely while the patients with incoherence commit errors in selecting words for output.

Download Full-text

Perception of threat in schizophrenics with persecutory delusions: an investigation using visual scan paths

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291799001397 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 157-167 ◽

Cited By ~ 88

Author(s):

M. L. PHILLIPS ◽

C. SENIOR ◽

A. S. DAVID

Keyword(s):

Contextual Information ◽

Persecutory Delusions ◽

Black And White ◽

Perception Of Threat ◽

Scan Path ◽

Schizophrenic Patients ◽

Scan Paths ◽

On Line ◽

Biased Processing ◽

Normal Controls

Background. Cognitive theories of persecutory delusions in schizophrenia include increased attention to threat and reduced re-appraisal of information during decision-making.Methods. We employed visual scan path measurements, an ‘on-line’ marker of attention, in schizophrenic patients with persecutory delusions (N = 19), negative symptom- and medication-matched patients with non-persecutory delusions (N = 8), and normal controls (N = 18). Stimuli comprised black-and-white photographs of social scenes rated as depicting either neutral, ambiguous or overtly threatening activity. Foreground areas containing salient information with regard to the overall scene were rated independently as either threatening or non-threatening in both the overtly threatening and ambiguous scenes; all foreground areas were rated as non-threatening in the neutral scene.Results. For the ambiguous scene only, schizophrenics with persecutory delusions directed gaze to less threatening areas, and, for all three scenes, demonstrated reduced re-appraisal of information compared with both control groups. All subjects showed similar viewing strategies for the overtly threatening and neutral scenes.Conclusions. These findings suggest abnormal information gathering and evaluation in schizophrenics, specifically related to the presence of persecutory delusions. In particular, the results point to biased processing of contextual information in an ambiguous setting in these patients, and perhaps perception of threat in inappropriate places.

Download Full-text

Semantic memory is both impaired and anomalous in schizophrenia

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291700026957 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 193-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 67

Author(s):

E. Y. H. Chen ◽

A. J. Wilkins ◽

P. J. McKenna

Keyword(s):

Reaction Time ◽

Semantic Memory ◽

Reaction Time Task ◽

Semantic Category ◽

Semantic Relationship ◽

Conceptual Category ◽

Ambiguous Words ◽

Schizophrenic Patients ◽

Speed And Accuracy ◽

Normal Controls

SynopsisThe integrity of semantic memory in schizophrenia was examined in a reaction time task requiring subjects to verify words as members or non-members of a conceptual category, where the words differed in their degree of semantic relationship to the category. Compared to matched normal controls, 28 schizophrenic patients were impaired on the task, showing slower responses in all conditions. In addition, their performance was anomalous in that they took longest to respond to items that were outside the category but semantically related to it, in contrast to the controls who took the longest to respond to ambiguous words at the borderline of the category. The pattern of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses of the patients was anomalous in a similar way. In both speed and accuracy of responding, the findings indicate that there is an outward shift of semantic category boundaries in schizophrenia.

Download Full-text

Small Intestine Permeability in Schizophrenia

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.155.5.619 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 155 (5) ◽

pp. 619-622 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

M. Timothy Lambert ◽

Ingvar Bjarnason ◽

James B. Connelly ◽

Timothy J. Crow ◽

Eve C. Johnstone ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Small Intestine ◽

Coeliac Disease ◽

Antidepressant Medication ◽

Schizophrenic Patients ◽

Gastrointestinal Permeability ◽

Normal Controls

Gastrointestinal permeability was assessed by means of absorption of 51Cr-labelled EDTA in 24 patients with schizophrenia (12 in relapse and 12 in remission). The results were compared with those for patients with coeliac disease and those for normal controls. Significant differences between the schizophrenic patients and the normal controls were not established. The results for the schizophrenic patients in remission were no different from those for the patients in relapse, and there was no evidence from the study of an effect on gastrointestinal permeability of either anticholinergic or antidepressant medication. It is concluded that schizophrenia is, at least in the majority of cases, unrelated to coeliac disease.

Download Full-text