ABSTRACT
Schizophrenia patients' perceptual organization abilities were assessed with a psychophysically well-controlled measure of contour integration. Compared with psychiatric and staff controls, schizophrenia patients were less able to detect contours comprising Gabor elements as the detection of these contours relied increasingly on long-range spatial interactions. Impaired task performance was also found to correlate significantly with higher levels of disorganized symptomatology. These data provide further evidence for impaired perceptual grouping in schizophrenia. In addition, the findings support the hypothesis that a common cortical processing algorithm involving contextual coordination is impaired in schizophrenia, leading to reduced binding of object features in vision, and reduced contextual disambiguation of linguistic information during thought and speech.
Subject(s)
Concept Formation , Pattern Recognition, Visual , Perceptual Disorders/diagnosis , Schizophrenia, Disorganized/diagnosis , Adult , Chronic Disease , Concept Formation/physiology , Discrimination Learning/physiology , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Neurons/physiology , Neuropsychological Tests , Orientation/physiology , Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology , Perceptual Disorders/physiopathology , Perceptual Disorders/psychology , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Schizophrenia, Disorganized/physiopathology , Schizophrenia, Disorganized/psychology , Visual Cortex/physiopathologyABSTRACT
Many patients with schizophrenia are characterized by cognitive deficits that limit their ability to benefit from psychiatric rehabilitation interventions. While this suggests that cognitive rehabilitation is important, more needs to be known about which cognitive deficits interfere with which aspects of outcome and functioning before effective interventions are developed. We report data on cognitive predictors of three types of outcome: acquisition and performance of skills in a skills training group; aspects of daily ward functioning; and ability to be discharged from a state hospital. Our data indicate that poorer outcomes in each of these areas are associated with different, but somewhat overlapping, profiles of cognitive deficits. These data are relevant for designing both ward-based and individualized interventions. Integrating traditional psychiatric rehabilitation approaches with targeted cognitive interventions is necessary to maximize the impact of psychiatric rehabilitation services on individuals with chronic schizophrenia.
