Cited by 88Schizophrenia research and treatmentNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesCognitive Abilities and Testing

Failure of Schizophrenia Patients to Overcome Salient Distractors During Working Memory Encoding

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Hahn, Britta, Robinson, Benjamin M., Kaiser, Samuel T., Harvey, Alexander N., Beck, Valerie M., Leonard, Carly J., Kappenman, Emily S., Luck, Steven J. +1 more·2010·Biological Psychiatry

Abstract

Background Prior demonstrations of impaired attentional control in schizophrenia focused on conditions in which top-down control is needed to overcome prepotent response tendencies. Attentional control over stimulus processing has received little investigation. Here, we test whether attentional control is impaired during working memory encoding when salient distractors compete with less salient task-relevant stimuli.Methods Patients with schizophrenia (n = 28) and healthy control subjects (n = 25) performed a visuospatial working memory paradigm in which half of the to-be-encoded stimuli flickered to increase their salience. After a 2-second delay, stimuli reappeared and participants had to decide whether or not a probed item had shifted location.Results In the unbiased condition where flickering and nonflickering stimuli were equally likely to be probed, both groups displayed a trend toward better memory for the flickering items. In the flicker-bias condition in which the flickering stimuli were likely to be probed, both groups displayed a robust selection advantage for the flickering items. However, in the nonflicker-bias condition in which the nonflickering stimuli were likely to be probed, only healthy control subjects showed selection of the nonflickering items. Patients displayed a trend toward preferential memory for the flickering items, as in the unbiased condition.Conclusions Both groups were able to select salient over nonsalient stimuli, but patients with schizophrenia were unable to select nonsalient over salient stimuli, consistent with impairment in the effortful control of attention. These findings demonstrate the generality of top-down control failure in schizophrenia in the face of bottom-up competition from salient stimuli as with prepotent response tendencies.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.04.014

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Authors
Hahn, B., Robinson, B. M., Kaiser, S. T., Harvey, A. N., Beck, V. M., Leonard, C. J., Kappenman, E. S., Luck, S. J., & Gold, J. M.
Affiliations
  • University of Maryland, Baltimore (US)
  • University of California, Davis (US)
Corresponding author
Hahn, Britta
Venue
Biological Psychiatry
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2010-10
Volume
68
Issue
7
Pages
603-609
ISSN
0006-3223 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2075177474
Cited by
88
References
54
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 8
FWCI
5.23
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Biological Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (MH065034)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
Keywords
schizophrenia, attentional control, working memory encoding, salient distractors, top-down control, visuospatial working memory, stimulus salience, prepotent response
MeSH terms
Adult, Analysis of Variance, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Female, Flicker Fusion, Humans, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenic Psychology, Space Perception, Statistics as Topic, Young Adult

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