Deficits on two continuous performance test versions and the forced-choice span of apprehension task, which are potential vulnerability factors for schizophrenic disorders, were examined in relationship to particular symptoms of schizophrenic disorders, with emphasis on hypothesized relationships to formal thought disorder and negative symptoms. These interrelationships were determined concurrently within a group of 40 schizophrenic patients at an inpatient point. In addition, 32 of these patients were retested at a stabilized outpatient point to address the extent to which continued attentional deficits were associated with specific symptomatology during the hospitalized period. Signal-discrimination deficits on the three tasks were consistently associated with inpatient negative symptoms of schizophrenia as measured by the Anergia factor of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), across both the inpatient and outpatient assessments. The outpatient signal-discrimination deficits also showed significant, but less consistent, correlations with inpatient schizophrenic modes of thinking measured by the Rorschach Thought Disorder Index and with formal thought disorder measured by the BPRS Conceptual Disorganization rating. In contrast, no relationship with inpatient hallucinations or delusions was found. Combined with previous findings from high-risk samples, these results are consistent with the view that signal-discrimination deficits in situations demanding high levels of effortful processing are enduring vulnerability factors for schizophrenic negative symptoms and possibly for certain schizophrenic forms of thought disorder.

Two groups of hypothetically psychosis-prone subjects were chosen from among college students who scored deviantly high on scales of Physical Anhedonia (n = 50) or Perceptual Aberration (n = 65). Scores on these two scales had a small negative correlation, indicating that the scales identify different sets of deviant subjects. These experimental subjects and a control group (n = 66) were interviewed using a modification of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia--Lifetime Version. A second interview covered social and academic adjustment. Psychotic and psychotic-like symptoms (attenuated forms of psychotic experiences) were scored on a recently devised scale of deviancy. The perceptual aberration subjects exceeded the control subjects on each of several psychotic-like experiences (auditory and visual experiences, thought transmission, passivity experiences, aberrant beliefs), as well as on depression, hypomania, social withdrawal, problems of concentration, deviances in communication and speech, and a composite score for schizotypal features. Anhedonics did not differ from controls on psychotic-like experiences but were more socially withdrawn, had less heterosexual interest and activity, and scored higher on the composite score of schizotypal features. The findings support the hypothesis that the scales identify persons who are at risk for psychosis but probably for different psychoses.

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In the adults, borderline personality disorder was significantly comorbid only with another cluster B disorder. The adolescents, by comparison, displayed a broader pattern of comorbidity of borderline personality disorder, encompassing aspects of clusters A and C. These results suggest that the borderline personality disorder diagnosis may represent a more diffuse range of psychopathology in adolescents than in adults.

The diagnosis of personality disorder in adolescent inpatients has good concurrent validity; however, the predictive validity of the diagnosis is mixed.