Communication disturbances, working memory, and emotion in people with elevated disorganized schizotypy

Abstract

This study examined whether people with elevated disorganized schizotypy would differ from control participants on characteristics associated with disorganization symptoms in schizophrenia and also whether disorganized schizotypy was associated with problems processing emotion. People with disorganized schizotypy (n = 32) exhibited greater communication disturbances (CD) than control participants (n = 34) for emotionally negative topics but not for positive topics. In addition, the disorganized group exhibited poorer performance on a working memory task but not on a psychometrically matched verbal intelligence task. In addition, poor working memory was associated with increased CD for negative topics and, after controlling for group differences in working memory, group differences in CD were not significant. Moreover, the disorganized group exhibited greater emotional ambivalence and ambivalence was associated with increased CD in the disorganized group. These results suggest that people with disorganized schizotypy exhibit some similar characteristics to people with schizophrenia who have disorganization symptoms and that disorganized schizotypy is also associated with poor emotion processing.

The role of atypical semantic activation and stress in odd speech: Implications for individuals with psychometrically defined schizotypy

“…A metaanalysis from our laboratory found that working memory deficits are among the most prominent differences in cognitive abilities between PS and non-PS groups, yet remain at a small effect size level (Chun et al, submitted for journal). In line with this finding, Kerns and Becker (2008) observed that individuals with PS demonstrated both working memory deficits and increases in odd speech in a stressful speech condition when compared to a non-PS group. They also observed that group differences in odd speech in this stressful condition were no longer significant when working memory deficits were controlled for.…”

“…Previous studies have observed small to medium effect size differences in odd speech when comparing PS and non-PS groups (Kerns and Becker, 2008;Minor and Cohen, 2010). These differences may be partially accounted for by cognitive deficits, particularly in working memory, as speech disorder is thought to reflect a failure in neurocognitive processing .…”

“…Stress may also play an important role in odd speech, as researchers have observed an increase in odd speech in stressful compared to pleasant conditions when individuals with schizophrenia (Docherty et al, 1994;Docherty and Hebert, 1997) and PS (Kerns and Becker, 2008) are compared to control participants. In line with these findings, we observed that ASA was related to odd speech when stressful events were discussed by individuals with PS, but not when pleasant or neutral topics were discussed (Minor et al, 2011).…”

Category fluency in psychometric schizotypy: how altering emotional valence and cognitive load affects performance

“…Compared to a nonschizotypy group, significant group differences only emerged once pleasant and unpleasant valence was introduced. Precedence for this finding has been provided by formal thought disorder studies, where significantly larger increases in disorganization have been observed in psychometric schizotypy groups from baseline to unpleasant valence conditions (Kerns & Becker, 2008;Minor, Cohen, Weber, & Brown 2011; but also see Minor & Cohen, 2010).…”

Distinct conflict resolution deficits related to different facets of Schizophrenia

“…One way to examine the inXuence of these confounds is to conduct research on people with schizophrenia who are taking medication as well as people who have never received medication (e.g., MacDonald et al, 2005). In addition, another way to remove these confounds is to conduct research with people at-risk for schizophrenia who do not yet have the disorder and are not receiving medication (e.g., Kerns & Becker, 2008). Another way to examine associations between cognitive deWcits and symptoms without these confound is human analogue research in which cognitive manipulations attempt to experimentally cause an increase in schizophrenia symptoms Kerns & Berenbaum, 2003;Sher & Trull, 1996).…”