Schizophrenic short-term memory: A deficit in subjective organization.

Abstract

Schizophrenic and normal Ss received three trials on each of two lists of trigrams, one being for recognition and the other for recall. One-half of the Ss received special instructions for alphabetical ordering of the recall terms, while the other half was asked to do their best Special instructions facilitated recall of normal S's, but not of schizophrenics. Instructions had no significant effect upon the recognition scores. The effect of trials was to increase schizophrenic recall, but not recognition, while normals showed gains both in recall and recognition. It is concluded that the schizophrenic recall deficit results in part, from an inability to subjectively organize memory store. * This article is based upon part of a dissertation submitted to Queen's University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the PHD degree. The author is particularly grateful to D. J. Murray who supervised this research and to the staff of the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital who made facilities and patients available for this study. This research was supported by NRC Operating Grant APA-126 to D. J. Murray.

Overinclusion, broad scanning, and picture recognition in schizophrenics

“…They have used several two-process models to explain these findings (see also Bauman, 1971). I n all models, recall-the more difficult task-is hypothesized to require two processes, while recognition needs only one.…”

“…Several investigators (Bauman & Murray, 1968; Koh, Kayton, & Berry, 1973;Nachmani & Cohen, 1969) have found that schizophrenics perform inadequately on recall tasks, but adequately on recognition tasks. They have used several two-process models to explain these findings (see also Bauman, 1971). I n all models, recall-the more difficult task-is hypothesized to require two processes, while recognition needs only one.…”

Limits of the processing view in accounting for dissociations among memory measures in a clinical population

“…Schizophrenia is a neuropsychiatric disorder that lends itself particularly well to the study of conceptually driven processes in memory. Patients with schizophrenia have shown an impaired ability compared with normal control subjects to recall recently presented material in a variety of tasks, including serial recall, free recall, and cued recall (Bauman, 1971;Bauman & Murray, 1968;Calev, 1984;Goldberg, Weinberger, Pliskin, Berman, & Podd, 1989;Koh & Kayton, 1974;Traupmann, 1975). It is suggested that the consistent recall failure in these patients is related to deficits in the use of elaborative and organizational processes, namely conceptually driven processes.…”

Pathogenesis of schizophrenia: Part I. Symptomatology, cognitive characteristics and brain morphology

“…It has been suggested that the poor recall performance in patients with schizophrenia is largely attributable to their deficit in mnemonic organization, difficulty in unitizing the material 24,25 or organizational search processes 26 . Gold et al 27 .…”

“…23 demonstrated that young schizophrenia patients exhibit decreased performance, especially in logical memory on the Wechsler Memory Scale, even though patients with a Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) IQ of above 90 were selected. It has been suggested that the poor recall performance in patients with schizophrenia is largely attributable to their deficit in mnemonic organization, difficulty in unitizing the material 24,25 or organizational search processes. 26 Gold et al .…”