The emotional responses of schizophrenic, depressed, and normal subjects and whether differences in the emotional responding of these groups depended on how emotional responses were elicited or measured were examined. Twenty-three blunted and 20 nonblunted schizophrenics, 17 unipolar depressed subjects, and 20 normal subjects were exposed to a series of affect-eliciting stimuli. The stimuli varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and in level of cognitive demand. Subjects reported their subjective experiences, and their facial expressions were videotaped. Blunted schizophrenics were the least facially expressive, although their reported subjective experiences did not differ from those of the other groups. The nonblunted schizophrenics were more responsive than the depressed subjects to the positive stimuli, although the two groups did not differ in their clinical ratings of affective flatness. Historically, psychopathologists have placed a great deal of emphasis on the role of emotional disturbance in schizophrenia. Whereas both Bleuler (1911/1950) and Kraepelin (1919/1971) considered affective flatness to be a universal symptom of schizophrenia, the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia (World Health Organization, 1973) revealed that only 66% of the schizophrenic patients studied exhibited flat affect. People with major depression have also been found to have flat affect (e.g., Andreasen, 1979; Pogue-Geile & Harrow, 1984). Although blunted affect may not be a universal symptom of schizophrenia and is not specific to the disorder, it does appear to have prognostic importance (Carpenter,
The goals of the present study were to examine (a) whether battered women in a sample of both shelter and nonshelter women are sustaining brain injuries from their partners and (b) if so, whether such brain injuries are associated with partner abuse severity, cognitive functioning, or psychopathology. Ninety-nine battered women were assessed using neuropsychological, psychopathology, and abuse history measures. Almost three quarters of the sample sustained at least 1 partner-related brain injury and half sustained multiple partner-related brain injuries. Further, in a subset of women (n = 57), brain injury severity was negatively associated with measures of memory, learning, and cognitive flexibility and was positively associated with partner abuse severity, general distress, anhedonic depression, worry, anxious arousal, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology.
Formal thought disorder (FTD), or disorganized speech, is one of the central signs of schizophrenia. Despite extensive research, the cognitive processes associated with FTD are still unclear. However, the authors' review of FTD theories and research indicates that considerable progress has been made in identifying possible cognitive impairments associated with FTD. Specifically, FTD is strongly associated with impaired executive functioning and with impaired processing of semantic information. Their review indicates that previous research has not yet supported an association between FTD and either an increase in spreading activation or an impairment within the language production system.
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