RESUMO
The minimal cognitive operation of thinking of a just-seen stimulus (refreshing) was studied in 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 normal controls. Verbal response times were measured when participants read a word, read a word immediately again, or refreshed a word just after it was no longer present. Patients showed equal priming as controls in reading a word for the second time and were slower than controls to say a word only in the refresh condition. On a surprise test, participants were asked to recognize the words they had seen previously and to give Remember, Know, or Guess responses according to whether they recognized words on the basis of conscious recollection, familiarity, or guessing. Although patients showed overall poorer recognition memory, the beneficial effect of refreshing on long-term memory accuracy and Remember responses was preserved, whereas they derived less benefit in familiarity from seeing an item twice than from refreshing it. These results suggest that although patients may have some difficulty engaging the refresh process, they show significant long-term memory benefits when induced to do so.
Assuntos
Transtornos Cognitivos/diagnóstico , Memória de Curto Prazo , Testes Neuropsicológicos/estatística & dados numéricos , Resolução de Problemas , Esquizofrenia/diagnóstico , Psicologia do Esquizofrênico , Pensamento , Aprendizagem Verbal , Adulto , Transtornos Cognitivos/psicologia , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Escalas de Graduação Psiquiátrica , Psicometria , Tempo de Reação , Leitura , Valores de Referência , Retenção Psicológica , Semântica , Comportamento VerbalRESUMO
Patients with schizophrenia (n = 24) matched with 24 normal subjects were presented with both words and pictures. On a recognition memory task, they were asked to give remember, know, or guess responses to items that were recognized on the basis of conscious recollection, familiarity, or guessing, respectively. Compared with normal subjects, patients exhibited a lower picture superiority effect selectively related to remember responses. Unlike normal subjects, they did not exhibit any word superiority effect in relation to guess responses; this explains why the overall picture superiority effect appeared to be intact. These results emphasize the need to take into account the subjective states of awareness when analyzing memory impairments in schizophrenia.
