Formal thought disorder in schizophrenia: an executive or a semantic deficit?

Barrera, Álvaro; McKenna, Peter; Berríos, Germán E.

doi:10.1017/s003329170400279x

Cited by 104 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…A number of investigators have found that patients with symptoms associated with language disturbance (i.e., formal thought disorder) demonstrate the greatest level of semantic impairments (Goldberg et al, 1998;Spitzer, 1997). The extent to which these deficits are attributable to semantic or executive system dysfunction (Barrera et al, 2005;Kerns and Berenbaum, 2002) and persist following treatment, remain important areas of investigation (Goldstein et al, 2002). We acknowledge that additional insight may be gained by 1) selecting patients with a broad range of clinical and cognitive symptoms, 2) assessment of longitudinal stability of categorization approaches and 3) alternate study designs that vary category exemplars and type of categorization procedure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organization of semantic category exemplars in schizophrenia

Moelter¹,

Hill²,

Hughett³

et al. 2005

Schizophrenia Research

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Semantic memory was investigated in 27 individuals with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls using an animal similarity judgment and organization test with reduced retrieval demands. Participants arranged 12 common animal names according to similarity on a computer screen and provided verbal descriptions of organizational strategies. Distance between each animal pair was compared to the number of shared semantic attributes between the pairs (e.g., size, diet, habitat). The three primary organizational strategies included single animals not related to other exemplars, isolated clusters of animals that shared a single strategic relationship (e.g., pets), and overlapping clusters that combined more than one strategic relationship (e.g., cats and mammals). A strong negative correlation was observed between distance ratings and number of shared semantic attributes, confirming that semantic features related to visual distances in both groups. Animal pairs that shared few semantic attributes were placed in closer proximity in the schizophrenia group, whereas the groups placed animal pairs sharing more features equidistantly. Analyses of clustering strategies revealed a double dissociation, with patients relying on isolated, nonoverlapping clusters and controls producing more overlapping semantic clusters. Results suggest that performance differences on semantic tasks with limited retrieval demands in schizophrenia relate to difficulties utilizing higher-order categorization strategies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organization of semantic category exemplars in schizophrenia

Moelter¹,

Hill²,

Hughett³

et al. 2005

Schizophrenia Research

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“…The pathogenesis of FTD is still poorly understood [10]. Previous studies have investigated the relation between FTD symptoms and neuropsychological impairments in different domains such as executive functions, attention, verbal fluency (VF), working memory, and proverb interpretation [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies have investigated the relation between FTD symptoms and neuropsychological impairments in different domains such as executive functions, attention, verbal fluency (VF), working memory, and proverb interpretation [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. A relation between FTD and executive dysfunctions (dysexecutive hypothesis or dysexecutive syndrome) has been discussed, in particular in the context of schizophrenia [10,20]. Another connection has been found between the positive FTD dimension and sustained-attention deficits [21,22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct Neuropsychological Correlates in Positive and Negative Formal Thought Disorder Syndromes: The Thought and Language Disorder Scale in Endogenous Psychoses

et al. 2016

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The correlation of formal thought disorder (FTD) symptoms and subsyndromes with neuropsychological dimensions is as yet unclear. Evidence for a dysexecutive syndrome and semantic access impairments has been discussed in positive FTD, albeit focusing mostly on patients with schizophrenia. We investigated the correlation of the full range of positive and negative as well as subjective and objective FTD with neuropsychological domains in different patient groups. Patients with ICD-10 schizophrenia (n = 51), depression (n = 51), and bipolar mania (n = 18), as well as healthy subjects (n = 60), were interviewed with the Rating Scale for the Assessment of Objective and Subjective Formal Thought and Language Disorder (TALD) and assessed using a multidimensional neuropsychological test battery (executive function, semantic and lexical verbal fluency, attention, working memory, and abstract thinking). Partial correlation analysis, controlling for age and word knowledge, revealed significant results for the objective positive FTD dimension and executive dysfunctions. Objective negative FTD was associated with deficits in lexico-semantic retrieval, as well as attention and working memory dysfunctions. The results suggest that different neuropsychological substrates correlate with the multidimensional and phenomenologically different FTD syndromes. FTD is a complex, multidimensional syndrome with a variety of neuropsychological impairments, which should be accounted for in future studies investigating the pathogenesis of FTD.

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“…Formal thought disorder has been found to relate to impairments in attention (Docherty and Gordinier, 1999;Harvey et al, 1998;Moser et al, 2001;Nuechterlein et al, 1986;Silverstein et al, 1991;Sowell et al, 2000), memory (Harvey et al, 1998;Nestor et al, 1998;Serper et al, 1990), and executive functions (Barrera et al, 2005;Nestor et al, 1998). However, few studies have examined multiple neurocognitive domains as correlates of formal thought disorder within the same sample.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurocognitive and social cognitive correlates of formal thought disorder in schizophrenia patients

Subotnik

Nuechterlein

Green

et al. 2006

Schizophrenia Research

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The neurocognitive and social cognitive correlates of two types of formal thought disorder (i.e., bizarre-idiosyncratic and concrete thinking) were examined in 47 stable outpatients with schizophrenia. Both types of thinking disturbance were related to impairments in verbal learning, intrusions in verbal memory, immediate auditory memory, sustained attention, and social schema knowledge. Distractibility during an immediate memory task was associated with more frequent bizarre verbalizations but not concreteness. Impaired verbal learning rate and intrusions in verbal memory independently contributed to the prediction of bizarre responses, whereas intrusions in verbal memory and impaired immediate memory independently contributed to concrete thinking. This pattern of findings is consistent with the view that neurocognitive and, possibly, social cognitive deficits underlie these two aspects of formal thinking disturbance in schizophrenia. D

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Formal thought disorder in schizophrenia: an executive or a semantic deficit?

Abstract: The results provide support for a dysexecutive hypothesis of formal thought disorder in schizophrenia, and, in line with other studies, suggest that there may be a restricted 'higher-order' semantic deficit which spares naming.

Cited by 104 publications

References 61 publications

Organization of semantic category exemplars in schizophrenia

Organization of semantic category exemplars in schizophrenia

Distinct Neuropsychological Correlates in Positive and Negative Formal Thought Disorder Syndromes: The Thought and Language Disorder Scale in Endogenous Psychoses

Neurocognitive and social cognitive correlates of formal thought disorder in schizophrenia patients

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