J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1991; 3:269-275
Copyright © 1991 by American Neuropsychiatric Association
Attention and higher cortical functions in schizophrenia
JT Kenny and HY Meltzer
Laboratory of Biological Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of attention in the
cognitive abnormalities of schizophrenia. Controlling for attention by
analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) had very little effect on the differences
between 15 schizophrenic patients and 14 controls in regard to recently
acquired, long-term episodic memory recall or remote semantic memory
retrieval. Differences between the patients and controls on the percent
perseverative response of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were
eliminated. These data suggest that deficits in attention may not underlie
impaired recall of newly acquired information in schizophrenia or in the
retrieval of information from remote, semantic memory, even under
circumstances requiring more effortful processing. The data also suggest a
contribution of attentional deficits to perseveration in schizophrenia.
