Verbal Learning and Memory in Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Abstract

The investigation of cognitive deficits in patients with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) is important both to establish commonalities between SPD and schizophrenia and to clarify the significance of these cognitive deficits for schizophrenic disorders. The purpose of this study was to examine verbal learning and memory with the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) in a group of patients with SPD (n = 24) and a group of patients with personality disorders other than SPD (OPD; n = 25). The results indicated that SPD patients learned significantly fewer words with practice on the CVLT than OPD patients (F = 4.32, df = 1,47, p < 0.05), and their rate of learning was reduced relative to normative standards. These findings suggest that SPD patients have a deficit in verbal learning that is similar to, although not as severe as, the impairments seen in schizophrenia.

Relationship between personality disorder dimensions and verbal memory functioning in a community population

“…Individuals with schizoid and schizotypal traits show significant relationships to objective memory impairment, as well as to subjective memory complaints, even adjusting for the presence of Axis I disorders. These results indicate that individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders are vulnerable to memory dysfunction, a finding consistent with considerable prior research (Voglmaier et al, 1997; Bergman et al, 1998; Mitropoulou et al, 2005). …”

“…Previous studies of cognition in PD patients have focused mainly on schizotypal (Voglmaier et al, 1997; Bergman et al, 1998; Mitropoulou et al, 2005; Noguchi et al, 2008), borderline (Burgess, 1992; Korfine and Hooley, 2000; Monarch et al, 2004; Stevens et al, 2004), and antisocial (Gorenstein, 1982; Malloy et al, 1990; Burgess, 1992) PDs, and there have not been comprehensive reports that have included all DSM-IV PDs. In addition, previous studies generally measured objective cognitive function, with only one report assessing subjective memory function in individuals with schizotypal PD (Chan et al, 2008).…”

New perspectives on schizotypal personality disorder

“…SPD patients also show deficits in verbal learning as measured by the California Verbal Learning Test. In one study, it appeared that patients showed deficits in somatic cueing and their rate of learning was poorer than controls [13], and in another study from our center patients showed impaired recall both at the first and the last presentation of the words [14]. SPD patients also show reduced performance on the Stroop Color Word Interference Test and verbal fluency tasks [11].…”

Neural correlates of creative thinking and schizotypy

“…Indeed, research into schizotypal personality disorder (SPD; a clinically diagnosed disorder seen as an attenuated form of schizophrenia; Siever et al, 2002) has demonstrated that individuals with a diagnosis of SPD show greater abnormalities in frontal lobe activation than non-clinical schizotypal individuals, which behaviourally manifest as prefrontal impairments on tests assessing frontal executive function (Bergman et al, 1998;Diforio, Walker, & Kestler, 2000). Therefore, some degree of inhibitory control is still required for creative output to be coherent and useful, rather than nonsensical.…”