Cognitive defi cits are clearly associated with poor everyday life functioning in persons diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, previous studies have primarily used questionnaires to assess everyday life functioning. We developed a computerized real-life activity task (shopping task), where participants are required to shop for a list of seven grocery store items. Thirty individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls were administered an extensive battery of cognitive tests and the computerized shopping task. Performances on the computerized shopping task signifi cantly differentiated patients and healthy controls for several variables. Moreover, performance on the shopping task was signifi cantly correlated with verbal episodic memory, cognitive fl exibility, planning, processing speed, and inhibition. Finally, performance on the computerized shopping task was signifi cantly correlated with various clinical variables and with a global measure of social functioning. These fi ndings suggest that the computerized task used in the present study provides an indication of the level of everyday life functioning and cognitive functioning of persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, and, therefore, may be viewed as a valuable instrument in both an evaluation and remediation context. ( JINS , 2010, 16, 180-189.)
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