Rue L. Cromwell

The relations between cognition and the independent living skill of shopping in people with schizophrenia

A great deal of interest has developed regarding the impact of cognitive deficits on the everyday functioning of people with schizophrenia. This study examined the relationships between cognitive functioning and the performance of a specific independent living skill (grocery shopping) in a sample of 73 individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Cognitive variables included tests of verbal memory, executive functioning, verbal fluency, sustained attention and visual motor skill. Functional outcome was measured with the Test of Grocery Shopping Skills, which is an ecologically based performance measure that requires participants to shop for 10 items within an actual grocery store. Accuracy on the shopping task was significantly associated with fewer perseverative responses on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, better verbal memory and faster processing speed. Shopping efficiency (i.e. less redundancy) was associated with better performance on several cognitive tasks, including verbal memory, verbal fluency, sustained attention and executive functioning. Results of this study extend previous research by examining the relation between cognition and the actual performance of daily living skills under natural circumstances.

Reaction time crossover in process schizophrenic patients, their relatives, and control subjects.

Of 70 process schizophrenic patients clinically assessed and tested for reaction time, 40 showed reaction time crossover. Of the 40 with crossover, 53 of their first degree relatives were clinically assessed and tested. Five of the relatives, found to have psychotic symptoms, were analyzed separately. Also, 41 control subjects without personal or family history of psychiatric disturbance were clinically assessed and tested. The nondisturbed relatives had reaction time crossover (regular minus irregular) significantly greater than the (expected) negative values of the normal control subjects, but not significantly greater than a zero value within subjects. When disturbed and nondisturbed relatives were combined, greater differences indicative of crossover occurred. On the other hand, the relatives, as expected, did not show the slow mean reaction time characteristic of diagnosed schizophrenic patients.

Sensory processing in schizophrenia: missing and avoiding information

The possible coexistence of supersensitivity and overinhibition (Schizophrenia: Origins, Processes, Treatment and Outcome (1993) 335-350) in schizophrenia was studied using the Adult Sensory Profile as a measure of Dunns (Infants Young Children 9 (1997) 23-25) model of sensory processing. The quadrant model describes sensory sensitivity, sensation avoiding, low registration and sensation seeking as behavioral responses to sensation. Individuals with schizophrenia (N = 27), bipolar disorder (N = 30) and mentally healthy controls (N = 29) were compared using the Adult Sensory Profile. When compared to the mentally healthy group, the results indicated that both the schizophrenia group and the bipolar disorder group had higher scores on sensation avoiding. The schizophrenia group also had higher scores on low registration and lower scores on sensation seeking than the mentally health group. There were no differences between the schizophrenia and bipolar disorder group. According to the findings of this study, individuals with schizophrenia tend to miss available sensory stimuli. When stimuli are indeed detected, they are often avoided.

Personal constructs among depressed patients.

The Kelly Role Construct Repertory Test (rep grid) was administered to 19 depressed patients, 19 psychiatric controls, and 19 normal controls. Tests were analyzed to produce measures of cognitive complexity, self-ideal congruency, negative self-construing, identification (self-other distances), and consistency of within-factor self-attribution. In comparison to the two control groups, three characteristics of depressed patients emerged: a) the well known tendency to construe oneself negatively occurred but not in terms of a greater number of factors with consistent negative self-description; instead, b) depressed patients had more mixed (positive and negative) self-description than other patients, thus suggesting a propensity to cognitive slot movement; finally, c) independent of positivity/negativity, depressed patients had a greater tendency to view themselves as different from others. From these findings a formulation about depression is presented, and implications for etiology and treatment are discussed.

Cognitive And Evoked Response Measures Of Information Processing In Schizophrenics With And Without A Family History Of Schizophrenia

Twenty-four male schizophrenics, 12 (SFH) with schizophrenia in the immediate family and 12 (SNFH) with no evidence of schizophrenia in the family background, and 24 male control subjects, 12 highly educated (HEC), and 12 minimally educated (MEC), were assessed for premorbid social adjustment and were administered the Digit Symbol Substitution Test, a size estimation task, and the EEG average evoked response (AER) at different levels of stimulus intensity. As predicted from the stimulus redundancy formulation, the SFH patients were poorer in premorbid adjustment, were less often paranoid, functioned at a lower level of cognitive efficiency (poor digit symbol and greater absolute error on size estimation), were more chronic, and, in some respects, had size estimation indices of minimal scanning. Contrary to prediction, the SFH group had the strongest and most sustained augmenting response on AER, while the SNFH group shifted from an augmenting to a reducing pattern of response. The relationship between an absence of AER reducing and the presence of cognitive impairment in the SFH group was a major focus of discussion.

Priming effects in schizophrenia: associative interference and facilitation as a function of visual context.

Irrelevant stimuli that flank a fixated target may cause either facilitation or interference with target classification. Twenty schizophrenic patients, 20 depressed control patients, and 20 normal control subjects were compared on a flanker priming task that involved the linear display of a target surrounded by two flanking letters or digits. Choice reaction time between letter and digit targets was examined as a function of flanker condition and onset asynchrony between flankers and target. Facilitative priming occurred only with prior exposure of flankers compatible with the response required and was greater in degree with schizophrenic and depressed than with normal subjects. Interference from flankers incompatible with the response required less among schizophrenics than among other groups. Several different processes may be involved in the inhibition of irrelevant information by schizophrenics.

Computerized Repertory Grids: Review Of The Literature

Abstract We review the literature documenting more than 25 years of progress in the design of computer software for repertory grids. First, analysis programs are reviewed; then programs that arc designed specifically for grid elicitation are discussed; finally, multifunction software packages (i.e., those that perform grid construction, elicitation, and/or analysis) are reviewed. Comparisons are offered, not only between the particular programs, but also between the single-function and multifunction categories. Directions for future development are considered.

Omimigrid-Pc: A new development in computerized repertory grids

Abstract A new approach to computer programs used to administer and/or analyze repertory grids is described. The system outlined here, OMNIGRID-PC, is a variation of OMNIGRID, which was designed to have broad practical and theoretical applications. The general features of OMNIGRID are discussed; then the unique features of the OMNIGRID-PC system, Versions 1.0 and 1.5, are explained in detail along with their underlying theoretical rationale. The Appendix more fully explicates the interpretive significance of the most substantive new feature of Version 3.5–Cromwell Format data collection.

Laterality, word valence, and visual attention: a comparison of depressed and non-depressed individuals.

Thirteen depressed and 13 non-depressed college students attended to valence-loaded word pairs (euphoric/dysphoric, euphoric/neutral, and neutral/dysphoric) on a computer screen. Each pair was observed through a viewing box with a vertical partition, each word in a different visual field. As a prior-entry task (Titchener, 1908) the words were simultaneously replaced by colored bars. Participants indicated which color bar (left or right) was seen first. As predicted, identifications of color bars following euphoric words in the right visual field (left hemisphere) exceeded their identification in the left visual field (right hemisphere). Also, as predicted, the non-depressed participants made identifications following the euphoric word of a pair more often than did the depressed participants. No interaction occurred between laterality and participant classification. Implications for research and therapy are discussed.

Span of apprehension in schizophrenic patients as a function of distractor masking and laterality.

Twenty schizophrenic patients, 10 depressed control patients, and 20 normal control subjects were compared in a forced-choice, target-detection method for assessing the span of apprehension. The detection task required the subject to report which of 2 target letters was presented among 7 other (distractor) letters. Performance accuracy was examined as a function of target location and whether the distractor letters were masked after their presentation. The backward masking of the distractors improved target-detection accuracy of both control groups but reduced accuracy of the schizophrenic group. In addition, schizophrenics performed particularly poorly on targets located in the left half or lower half of the display. These results suggest that response to the masking of distractors may be a new index of attentional shortcoming in schizophrenia. Various theoretical explanations for the target location findings are also discussed.