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The organization of autobiographical memory in patients with schizophrenia
Abstract
Patients with schizophrenia exhibit a wide range of cognitive deficits, including autobiographical memory impairment. It has been suggested that there is a link between this impairment and a disorganization of autobiographical knowledge. This study aimed to explore both the elementary and conceptual organization of autobiographical memory in schizophrenia.
We used an event-cueing procedure to obtain and compare ten chains of six inter-related autobiographical memories of eighteen patients with schizophrenia and seventeen control participants. Elementary organization, which relies on memories' basic characteristics, including sensory-perceptive, cognitive, affective and temporal ones, was assessed by calculating the degree of similarity of the memories' characteristics within chains. Cluster-type connectivity, a form of conceptual organization reflecting the ability to organize autobiographical information about sets of causally and thematically related events, was assessed by asking the participants to describe the type of relationship between cued and cueing autobiographical memories.
Whereas in controls elementary organization of memories relied on sensory-perceptive and cognitive characteristics of the memories, in patients it was mostly based on the memories' emotional content. Temporal organization and conceptual organization appeared to be preserved in patients.
Patients fail to use sensory-perceptive and cognitive characteristics of memories to organize autobiographical knowledge. Possibly to compensate for this, they rely more on the memories' emotional characteristics. Our results point towards an imbalance between emotional and non-emotional factors underlying the organization of autobiographical memory in schizophrenia.
... Picture cues were also used [51], including 120 pictures (i.e., positive, negative, and neutral images) from the International Affective Picture System to stimulate participants' emotions to evoke specific memories [91]. One study [65] used cue-withinthe-cue words adapted from an earlier study [105]. After the patients retrieved a specific AM for each cue word, they were asked to title the memory; this title was used to evoke another memory in a subsequent trial [65]. ...
... One study [65] used cue-withinthe-cue words adapted from an earlier study [105]. After the patients retrieved a specific AM for each cue word, they were asked to title the memory; this title was used to evoke another memory in a subsequent trial [65]. One study [77] applied the Narrative of Emotion Task, asking participants to construct their experiences based on simple (i.e., happy; sad), complex (i.e., surprised; suspicious), and self-conscious (i.e., ashamed; guilty) emotion words. ...
... After giving a specific AM in response to a cue word, the participants were asked to give a title to the AM. This title was then used as a cue to evoke subsequent specific memories ▪ Morise et al., 2011 [65] International Affective Picture System [91]. ▪ Neumann et al., 2007 [51] Narrative of Emotions Task (NET [92];), to provide simple (i.e., happy, sad), complex (i.e., suspicious, surprised), and self-conscious emotions (i.e., ashamed, guilty) to elicit their stories. ...
Background:
Patients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders demonstrate various cognitive deficiencies, the most pertinent one being impairment in autobiographical memory. This paper reviews quantitative research investigating deficits in the content, and characteristics, of autobiographical memories in individuals with schizophrenia. It also examines if the method used to activate autobiographical memories influenced the results and which theoretical accounts were proposed to explain the defective recall of autobiographical memories in patients with schizophrenia.
Methods:
PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed databases were searched for articles published between January 1998 and December 2018. Fifty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies implemented the generative retrieval strategy by inducing memories through cue words or pictures, the life-stage method, or open-ended retrieval method. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement guidelines were followed for this review.
Results:
Most studies reported that patients with schizophrenia retrieve less specific autobiographical memories when compared to a healthy control group, while only three studies indicated that both groups performed similarly on memory specificity. Patients with schizophrenia also exhibited earlier reminiscence bumps than those for healthy controls. The relationship between comorbid depression and autobiographical memory specificity appeared to be independent because patients' memory specificity improved through intervention, but their level of depression remained unchanged. The U-shaped retrieval pattern for memory specificity was not consistent. Both the connection between the history of attempted suicide and autobiographical memory specificity, and the relationship between psychotic symptoms and autobiographical memory specificity, remain inconclusive. Patients' memory specificity and coherence improved through cognitive training.
Conclusions:
The overgeneral recall of autobiographical memory by patients with schizophrenia could be attributed to working memory, the disturbing concept of self, and the cuing method implemented. The earlier reminiscence bump for patients with schizophrenia may be explained by the premature closure of the identity formation process due to the emergence of psychotic symptoms during early adulthood. Protocol developed for this review was registered in PROSPERO (registration no: CRD42017062643).
... Cette étude a également montré un affaiblissement du lien thématique unissant les souvenirs aux images de soi chez les patients et une organisation défectueuse de ces souvenirs en mémoire : les événements reliés à une même image de soi chez les patients étaient plus hétérogènes quant à leur thème et leurs caractéristiques cognitives en comparaison aux témoins. Ces résultats rejoignent ceux d'une autre étude ayant évalué l'organisation de la mémoire autobiographique pour d'autres types de souvenirs [26]. Ils mettent en évidence un affaiblissement et une désorganisation du self et suggèrent l'existence d'un défaut d'intégration des souvenirs au self. ...
... Concernant la base de connaissances autobiographiques, deux études renseignent sur une possible organisation anormale des souvenirs au sein de cette base [11,26] en montrant une plus grande hétérogénéité des souvenirs au sein d'un groupe de souvenirs reliés à une thématique commune. Ces résultats rejoignent ceux d'études précédentes qui suggèrent une défaillance dans la construction des catégories sémantiques et dans l'organisation du réseau sémantique en mémoire [6]. ...
... Recent research on patients' self-narratives has benefited from the empirical approaches developed in the domain of autobiographical memory. Several studies have thus shown that autobiographical memory is impaired in schizophrenia and that patients' self is supported by less vivid, less specific and less organized memories [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . Moreover, patients have difficulties to interpret and give meaning to significant personal events 23,24 . ...
... Based on the above-mentioned studies, we expected to find specific impairment of autobiographical reasoning and consequently of causal-motivational and thematic coherence of patients' life narratives, which in turn may be related to executive dysfunction 23,24 and a deficit of general self-representation 12,17 . We did not make predictions regarding temporal coherence, considering the contradictory results of previous studies showing either a preserved temporal organization of autobiographical memory clusters 14,19 or a reduced chronological coherence within memories of patients with schizophrenia 24 . ...
The self or identity is often seriously challenged by the emergence of psychotic symptoms. A first reason for that is most likely due to the traumatic experience caused by the sudden emergence of
hallucinations or persecutory ideas that challenge both the representation of oneself and that of the world and others. A second reason is linked to the social consequences of having a mental illness and of being assigned with the label of “mentally ill or disabled person”. A third relates to the patients’ cognitive impairment that alters their ability to take distance from these self-challenging
events, to give a meaning to these experiences and to build coherent narratives of their life that integrate a great variety of personal experiences such as turning points or unpleasant events. For
these reasons, recovering from a severe mental illness is a process through which the self evolves by integrating the lessons of past personal events, building new representations of oneself and looking to new directions for future projects. Excerpts of patients’ narratives collected in experimental setting will be presented in order to illustrate how indexes of recovery can be measured in selfnarratives and how they help identifying the steps of self-recovery
that have been identified in qualitative research on patients with schizophrenia.
... Recent research on patients' self-narratives has benefited from the empirical approaches developed in the domain of autobiographical memory. Several studies have thus shown that autobiographical memory is impaired in schizophrenia and that patients' self is supported by less vivid, less specific and less organized memories [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . Moreover, patients have difficulties to interpret and give meaning to significant personal events 23,24 . ...
... Based on the above-mentioned studies, we expected to find specific impairment of autobiographical reasoning and consequently of causal-motivational and thematic coherence of patients' life narratives, which in turn may be related to executive dysfunction 23,24 and a deficit of general self-representation 12,17 . We did not make predictions regarding temporal coherence, considering the contradictory results of previous studies showing either a preserved temporal organization of autobiographical memory clusters 14,19 or a reduced chronological coherence within memories of patients with schizophrenia 24 . ...
Self-narratives of patients have received increasing interest in schizophrenia since they offer unique material to study patients’ subjective experience related to their illness, in particular the alteration of self that accompanies schizophrenia. In this study, we investigated the life narratives and the ability to integrate and bind memories of personal events into a coherent narrative in 27 patients with schizophrenia and 26 controls. Four aspects of life narratives were analyzed: coherence with cultural concept of biography, temporal coherence, causal-motivational coherence and thematic coherence.
Results showed that in patients cultural biographical knowledge is preserved, whereas temporal coherence is partially impaired. Furthermore, causal-motivational and thematic coherence are significantly impaired: patients have difficulties explaining how events have modeled their identity, and integrating different events along thematic lines. Impairment of global causal-motivational and thematic coherence was significantly correlated with patients’ executive dysfunction, suggesting that cognitive impairment observed in patients could affect their ability to construct a coherent narrative of their life by binding important events to their self. This study provides new understanding of the cognitive deficits underlying self-disorders in patients with schizophrenia. Our findings suggest the potential usefulness of developing new therapeutic interventions to improve autobiographical reasoning skills.
... Recent research on patients' self-narratives has benefited from the empirical approaches developed in the domain of autobiographical memory. Several studies have thus shown that autobiographical memory is impaired in schizophrenia and that patients' self is supported by less vivid, less specific and less organized memories [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . Moreover, patients have difficulties to interpret and give meaning to significant personal events 23,24 . ...
... Based on the above-mentioned studies, we expected to find specific impairment of autobiographical reasoning and consequently of causal-motivational and thematic coherence of patients' life narratives, which in turn may be related to executive dysfunction 23,24 and a deficit of general self-representation 12,17 . We did not make predictions regarding temporal coherence, considering the contradictory results of previous studies showing either a preserved temporal organization of autobiographical memory clusters 14,19 or a reduced chronological coherence within memories of patients with schizophrenia 24 . ...
This chapter introduces a comprehensive descriptive model of which aspects of autobiographical memory narratives may be distorted in diverse clinical disorders, by defense and coping efforts, and how they may change in the course of psychotherapy. The different features will be systematically related to each other by the concepts of narrative perspective and emotion. Narrative perspective helps organize the narrative features, and emotion is assumed to be the motivating force behind the distortions. To indicate the organizing power of the model, various constructs that capture distortions of autobiographical memories are located within the model, thus creating an integrative framework. Selected disorders and selected findings on the process of coping and psychotherapy are also interpreted in terms of the model. The general approach to clinical dysfunctions of autobiographical memory is a narrative one, which is inspired by basic tenets of psychoanalysis.
... Patients with schizophrenia have consistently demonstrated difficulties retrieving specific autobiographical memories of past events that occurred at a particular time and place and lasted less than a day (Feinstein et al., 1998;Danion et al., 2005;Dimaggio et al., 2012;Potheegadoo et al., 2012). Most importantly, this lack of memory specificity represents one aspect of broader alterations of autobiographical memories in schizophrenia that are associated with reduced self-consciousness (Danion et al., 2005;Potheegadoo et al., 2012), deficits in self-identity (Raffard et al., 2010;Berna et al., 2011a;Bennouna-Greene et al., 2012) and mentalizing (Dimaggio et al., 2012), disorganization of autobiographical knowledge (Morise et al., 2011) and distortions of temporal perception and visual perspective (Potheegadoo et al., 2012(Potheegadoo et al., , 2013. ...
... Finally, it is worth noting that autobiographical memory impairment may not only relate to deficits occurring at the retrieval phase in schizophrenia. In fact, dysfunctions of cognitive processes involved at the encoding phase (Riutort et al., 2003;Danion et al., 2007) or in the storage and organization phase may also contribute to patients' autobiographical memory deficits (Morise et al., 2011;Bennouna-Greene et al., 2012). ...
... Thus, when the person remembers, it is important that he or she sense himself or herself in the past, a phenomenon called recollective experience [18,20]. Re-experiencing oneself in the past improves the quality of AM in that it elicits more details and helps to place specific memories in a timeline [21]. It also serves a further purpose by helping "ground the self" by promoting the construction of self-knowledge (i.e., autonoetic consciousness) and selfnarratives [15,22,23]. ...
Background
Autobiographical memory is an important component of declarative memory, which refers to the ability to recall personal events that happened in the past. This requires that the person senses or experiences himself/herself in the past (i.e., conscious recollection). For people with schizophrenia, conscious recollection can be particularly difficult, resulting in difficulty accessing detailed, specific autobiographical information. Our hypothesis is that the ability to monitor and think about one's cognitive processes (metacognition) is a requisite for conscious recollection, and that it mediates the association between having schizophrenia and recalling fewer specific, personal memories.
Methods
Participants were 30 adults with schizophrenia and 30 matched healthy controls. The main assessment instruments were the Metacognition Assessment Scale-Abbreviated (MAS-A) and the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT). Severity of symptoms was assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for schizophrenia. Cognitive performance was measured with the Screen for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP). Mediation analysis was conducted following Baron and Kenny's procedure.
Results
People with schizophrenia had more semantic associations and fewer specific memories than controls in the AMT. Metacognition (MAS-A total score) partially mediated the association between having schizophrenia and recalling fewer specific past events, even after controlling for cognitive impairment as a potential confounding source.
Conclusions
Metacognitive ability, which can be improved with available programs, intervenes in the process of accessing autobiographical memories in people with schizophrenia. Practical implications of this finding are discussed.
... They suggested that the construction of semantic categories and the organization of the semantic network could be deficient in schizophrenia (Aloia, Gourovitch, Weinberger, & Goldberg, 1996;Paulsen et al., 1995;Rossel et al., 1999;Bozikas, Kosmidis, & Karavatos, 2005;Sumiyoshi, Ertugrul, Anil Yagcioglu, & Sumiyoshi, 2009;Vinogradov et al., 2003). In fact, several studies have demonstrated that clusters of autobiographical memories were less organized in patients with schizophrenia (Bennouna-Greene et al., 2012;Morise, Berna, & Danion, 2011), this pointing to a disorganized storage of autobiographical knowledge in schizophrenia. Apart from this, other studies have shown that patients' memory narratives were less coherent or organized, this being true both for narratives of single events (Raffard et al., 2010) and for life story narratives encompassing several life events Allé et al., 2016). ...
Schizophrenia is associated with memory disorders that affect patients in their daily life. Patients complain about difficulty to remember knowledge that has been recently learnt together with its context (episodic memory, EM) but also more complex events that have been personally experienced (autobiographical memory, AM). While deficits at both encoding and retrieval have been shown to account for EM disorders in schizophrenia, the cognitive mechanisms involved in AM disorders are more difficult to approach. This is partly explained by the conceptual difference between EM and AM. Some methodological limitations inherent to the AM research also reduce the possibility to investigate the early processing of complex and dynamic real-life events at encoding; rather the retrieval processes engaged have therefore been the focus of the bulk of extant research. The aim of this review is to summarize the main findings related to EM and AM research in patients with schizophrenia, to discuss the putative mechanisms that may account for patients' AM impairment, based in particular on the literature about EM, and to provide an agenda for future research aiming to further elucidate the role of encoding deficits in AM in patients.
... Regarding the temporal organization of autobiographical events, Morise, Berna and Danion (2011) investigated the organization of chains of events in individuals with schizophrenia, compared to control participants. They analyzed the similarity of basic characteristics (i.e., sensory-perceptive, cognitive, emotional and temporal) and the presence of cluster-type links (i.e., causally and/or thematically related events) between the cued and cueing events. ...
The aim of this thesis was to investigate the processes involved in the temporal location of personal future events in healthy individuals and in patients with schizophrenia. To do so, we used a think-aloud procedure in three experimental studies to analyse the strategies used to determine the times of autobiographical events. In Study 1, we found that participants mostly used reconstructive/inferential processes to date events. They relied most frequently on autobiographical knowledge (i.e., lifetime periods/extended events) and general knowledge to reconstruct or infer the times of events, both for past and future events. In Study 2, we found that personal goals influenced the temporal location process by increasing the direct access to the times of important future events, and by favouring the use of autobiographical knowledge to infer the times of events when dates are not directly accessible. In Study 3, we found that patients with schizophrenia had difficulties to rely on episodic information to reconstruct or infer the times of personal events, and made more errors when they were asked to temporally order the previously dated events. Based on these novel findings, we propose a dual-process model of the temporal location of autobiographical events that articulates the cognitive mechanisms engaged in the dating of past and future events.
... In addition, patients display difficulties to estimate the temporal distance of personally experienced past events (36), and the narratives of patients' personal life are also temporally disorganized (37,18). Nevertheless, studies also showed that patients are able to use temporal cues appropriately to create clusters of autobiographical memories (38). It has been previously shown that patients with schizophrenia have difficulties in segmenting movies of daily life activities (39). ...
Cognitive disorders are considered as a core symptom of schizophrenia. Importantly, episodic autobiographical memory deficits are strongly related to patients’ social dysfunction. Although the cognitive mechanisms underlying autobiographical memory deficit are highly important to open the door for specific cognitive remediation, they are yet to be understood. The present study focused on event segmentation to check to which extent possible impairments in temporal ordering and segmenting in patients hinder memories construction. Twenty-seven patients with schizophrenia and 27 matched controls took part in an outdoor circuit while wearing a wearable camera. A week later, their memory and the temporal organization of this event have been assessed. Results showed that patients, compared with control participants, reported a reduced amount of details, especially less actions with interaction related to the event. Contrary to our initial hypotheses, event segmentation abilities in patients were not affected. The relationship between event segmentation and memory is discussed.
... Specific autobiographical memories refer to contextual, emotional, or sensory-perceptual details of an event that people can recover from their memories and perfectly locate in a concrete moment of their lives, normally occurring in a concrete period of time lasting less than 1 day (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Most important, lack of specificity has been associated with deficits in self-identity and mentalizing (Berna et al., 2011a;Dimaggio, Salvatore, Popolo, & Lysaker, 2012), distortions of temporal perception and visual perspective (Potheegadoo, Berna, Cuervo-Lombard, & Danion, 2013;Potheegadoo, Cuervo-Lombard, Berna, & Danion, 2012), reduced selfconsciousness (Potheegadoo et al., 2012), and disorganization of autobiographical knowledge (Morise, Berna, & Danion, 2011). AM impairments are robustly associated with the clinical status of depression and with its recovery process (Williams et al., 2007). ...
Objective: Because the well‐known relationship between
autobiographical memory (AM) with social functioning and
psychopathology can manifest itself in a different way for
memories of different life periods, the current work assesses
AM specificity deficits across different life stages in people
with schizophrenia.
Method: This cross‐sectional study compares the performance
of specific AM in people with a diagnosis of
schizophrenia (n = 53, 78% male, 39.03 mean age) and
controls (n = 69, 88% male, 36.65 mean age) for four life
periods (childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and the
year preceding the assessment) using the Autobiographical
Memory Enquiry.
Results: The results revealed worse AM performance in
people with schizophrenia, especially for memory of events
occurring over the preceding year, and the use of overgeneral
memory style for life periods succeeding childhood.
Conclusion: These results highlight the need for systematic
assessment of difficulties in retrieving specific memories
across life periods in people with schizophrenia.
... The results of our studies are in accordance with those of previous studies showing that basic temporal information of personal memories (such as their date of occurrence) are appropriately used by patients when they have to punctuate their narrative with temporal indicators (as in our study) or when they have to create clusters of inter-related autobiographical memories [30,31]. There are deficits, however, in patients with schizophrenia in the ability to create temporal coherence in narratives of single events [18] as well as in temporally more extended life narratives (as in our study) or in narratives related to patients' illness [14]. ...
Objective:
Life narratives of patients with schizophrenia are characterized by impaired coherence so that the listener has often difficulties to grasp the life trajectory of the patients. In order to better understand what causes this reduced temporal coherence, we investigated the temporal structure of patients' life narratives through different temporal narrative elements (elaboration of beginnings and endings, local temporal indicators and temporal deviations from a linear order), across two complementary studies.
Methods:
Life narratives were collected by means of two different methods; a free recall in study 1 and a more structured protocol, aiming at reducing the cognitive task demands in study 2. All narratives from the two studies were analyzed using the same validated method.
Results:
Both studies showed that global temporal coherence is significantly reduced in patients with schizophrenia (ps.02). This is mainly due to their stronger tendency to temporally deviate from a linear temporal order without marking the deviation as such. We also observed significant correlations in the patient groups between global temporal coherence and executive dysfunction (p=.008) or their higher tendency to temporally deviate from a linear temporal order in their life narratives (p<.001).
Conclusions:
These results shed light on narrative correlates of temporal narrative incoherence in schizophrenia and highlight the central role of executive dysfunction in this incoherence.
... The results of our studies are in accordance with those of previous studies showing that basic temporal information of personal memories (such as their date of occurrence) are appropriately used by patients when they have to punctuate their narrative with temporal indicators (as in our study) or when they have to create clusters of inter-related autobiographical memories [30,31]. There are deficits, however, in patents with schizophrenia in the ability to create temporal coherence in narratives of single events [18] as well as in temporally more extended life narratives (as in our study) or in narratives related to patients' illness [14]. ...
Les troubles de l’identité dans la schizophrénie ont été longtemps considérés comme un symptôme central de la maladie, et ce dès ses premières descriptions cliniques. Jusqu’à récemment, leur compréhension a reposé principalement sur des réflexions cliniques ou philosophiques. Dans cet article, nous proposons une synthèse théorique des études portant sur la mémoire autobiographique dans la schizophrénie, en considérant ces perturbations comme un mécanisme cognitif possible pouvant expliquer les troubles de l’identité (ou self) dans cette maladie. Notre analyse a été construite en référence au modèle théorique du self-memory system de Conway (2005) et nous amène à proposer que l’affaiblissement général des caractéristiques subjectives des souvenirs autobiographiques observé chez les patients refléterait une altération de la composante expérientielle du self et de la continuité temporelle du self. La composante conceptuelle du self qui regroupe les images de soi et les croyances apparaît également affaiblie. Enfin, l’organisation des souvenirs autobiographiques, le lien entre le self et les souvenirs ainsi que l’intégration des souvenirs au sein du self apparaissent diminués chez les patients. Nous concluons notre analyse en présentant des interventions thérapeutiques existantes et futures qui visent à corriger ces différentes perturbations.
... Ces anomalies de l'expérience subjective autobiographique ont également été associées aux troubles de l'identité personnelle des patients . De nombreuses études expérimentales ont objectivé les troubles de la mémoire autobiographique dans la schizophrénie (Berna et al., 2011a ;D'Argembeau et al., 2008 ;Morise et al., 2011;. Les patients schizophrènes ont des difficultés majeures à remémorer consciemment les souvenirs de leurs expériences personnelles passées avec spécificité et vivacité. ...
Patients with schizophrenia suffer from severe autobiographical memory deficits. These have a significant impact on patients’ personal identity and functional status in daily life. Through three studies, we showed that all the subjective characteristics of autobiographical recall are impaired in patients with schizophrenia (distorted perception of subjective time, memory recall less associated with Field visual perspective). The impairment of these subjective aspects of autobiographical recall was linked to the lack of specificity of memories and low level of details in patients’ memories. It is these details which allow vivid memory recall. Hence, we tested the effectiveness of a method which showed that deficits in the strategic retrieval of memory details could be remediated. Patients are able to improve the recall of their memory details when given the necessary means to do so. A cognitive remediation therapy, based on this method, could be set up with patients with schizophrenia.
... The independence of metacognition from social cognition is consistent with advances stemming from neuroscience (Dimaggio et al., 2009) and a recent factor analysis which suggested social cognition and metacognition have unique relationships with outcome variables . It is also consistent with findings that the selfreport of highly idiosyncratic self-experiences also distinguishes persons at risk for schizophrenia who later developed or did not develop the condition (Parnas et al., 2011) as well as work suggesting persons with schizophrenia have unique disruptions in the richness of autobiographical memory (Morise et al., 2011;Raffard et al., 2009Raffard et al., , 2010. ...
Research has suggested that many with schizophrenia experience decrements in synthetic metacognition, or the abilities to form integrated representations of oneself and others and then utilize that knowledge to respond to problems. Although such deficits have been linked with functional impairments even after controlling for symptoms and neurocognition, it is unclear to what extent these deficits can distinguish persons with schizophrenia from others experiencing significant life adversity but without psychosis. To explore this issue we conducted logistic regression analysis to determine whether assessment of metacognition could distinguish between 166 participants with schizophrenia and 51 adults with HIV after controlling for social cognition and education. Metacognition was assessed with the Metacognitive Assessment Scale Abbreviated (MAS-A), and social cognition with the Bell Lysaker Emotion Recognition Test. We observed that the MAS-A total score was able to correctly classify 93.4% of the schizophrenia group, with higher levels of metacognition resulting in increased likelihood of accurate categorization. Additional exploratory analyses showed specific domains of metacognition measured by the MAS-A were equally able to predict membership in the schizophrenia group. Results support the assertion that deficits in the abilities to synthesize thoughts about oneself and others into larger representations are a unique feature of schizophrenia.
... La esquizofrenia es un síndrome que se caracteriza por varias disfunciones cognitivas, entre las que destacan aquellas relacionadas con la memoria autobiográfica (MA; Wang, Metzak, Honer y Woodward, 2010). Los estudios actuales muestran una clara evidencia de este deterioro de la MA en la esquizofrenia (Morise, Berna y Danion, 2011). Por ejemplo, los pacientes con esquizofrenia recuerdan menos recuerdos autobiográficos específicos (Riutort, Cuervo, Danion, Peretti y Salamé, 2003), especialmente a partir del inicio de su enfermedad (Elvevag, Maylor y Gilbert, 2003; Feinstein, Goldberg, Nowlin y Weinberger, 1998), y pocos aspectos autobiográficos de forma consciente en comparación con personas sin este tipo de patología (Neumann, Blairy, Lecompte y Philippot, 2007). ...
This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the Life Therapy Review (LTR) and the Significant Specific Life Events Therapy (SSLET) on the autobiographical memories and the mood state in patients with schizophrenia. 30 patients with schizophrenia were randomly assigned to a LTR group (n= 15) or SSLET group (n=15). Evaluations were made before and after treatment. The results show that both therapies increase autobiographical memory specificity. On the other hand, depressive symptoms only improve in SSLET group. This study provides evidence that autobiographical memory can be trained in schizophrenia, which allows to improve the capacity to encode and store new information. This improvement reduces source attributing mistakes.
... Use of metaphors for instance has been shown to be intact (Elvevag, Helsen, De Hert, Sweers, & Storms, 2011). Likewise, temporal and conceptual organization of autobiographic memory are preserved (Morise, Berna, & Danion, 2011). This might explain why performance of transitive and intransitive gestures was relatively less affected in schizophrenia; in other words, compared to other cognitive disturbances these knowledge domains are relatively preserved. ...
... The results of our studies are in accordance with those of previous studies showing that basic temporal information of personal memories (such as their date of occurrence) are appropriately used by patients when they have to punctuate their narrative with temporal indicators (as in our study) or when they have to create clusters of inter-related autobiographical memories [30,31]. There are deficits, however, in patents with schizophrenia in the ability to create temporal coherence in narratives of single events [18] as well as in temporally more extended life narratives (as in our study) or in narratives related to patients' illness [14]. ...
Further historical case descriptions of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are presented to substantiate the thesis that both are historically new syndromes if the fear of becoming overweight is considered to be an essential element in both syndromes. The concept of anorexia nervosa seems to have been quite well known in France before World War I. An extensive and highly insightful description of a case of anorexia nervosa by L. Schneider (Archives de Psych logic, 12, 201–206, 1912) and an even more extensive description of a case of bulimia nervosa at normal body weight by L. Bins anger (Jahrbuch fur Psychoanaiytische Frosting, 1, 174–356, 1909; the earliest description known) are introduced.
... Since IQ scores between patients and controls were statistically different (with controls having higher scores as a group), we followed a previous procedure (e.g. Morise et al., 2011) of correlating task performance with IQ to see if intelligence might have any relation to risk-taking behavior. Analyses revealed that IQ did not correlate with any of the risk-taking measures for either patients or controls (all p > .05, ...
Risky decision-making is subserved by the frontostriatal system, which includes a network of interconnected brain regions known to be dysfunctional in patients with schizophrenia. This study aimed to investigate whether and to what extent patients with schizophrenia display a different pattern of risk-taking behavior relative to matched healthy controls. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and the Risky-Gains Task were used as naturalistic measures of risk-taking behavior in 25 patients with schizophrenia and 25 controls. Results of the BART revealed that patients behaved more conservatively, and this in turn led to suboptimal risky decision-making. Consistently, patients behaved more conservatively in the Risky-Gains Task. Interestingly, however, they adjusted the pattern of risk-taking following a punished trial similar to controls. These findings indicate that patients have impaired reward but preserved punishment processing. This study complements previous studies on decision-making in schizophrenia and suggests specific rather than widespread abnormalities along the frontostriatal system in schizophrenia.
Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to project oneself to the past or future through mental simulation. Moreover, MTT can involve self‐related or other‐related information. This study aimed to compare MTT in individuals with high levels of schizotypy and that in their counterparts with low levels of schizotypy. Participants with high (n = 37) and low (n = 37) levels of schizotypy completed an MTT task with four conditions [2 (Condition: self vs. other) × 2 (Time orientation: past vs. future)]. They were required to recall past events that had happened to themselves or to a non‐intimate person, and to imagine possible future events that might happen to themselves or to a non‐intimate person, related to cue words. Outcome measures included specificity, vividness, sense of experience, emotional valence, emotional intensity, proportion of first‐person visual perspective in events, and difficulty in event generation. A 2 (Group: high vs. low levels of schizotypy) × 2 (Condition) × 2 (Time orientation) mixed analysis of variance was conducted on each index. Results showed that self‐related MTT was more specific than other‐related MTT in low levels of schizotypy participants but not in high levels of schizotypy participants. Participants with a high level of schizotypy reported fewer specific events, and reported events with lower vividness and positive emotion than did those with a low level of schizotypy. Self‐related MTT showed higher levels of phenomenological characteristics than did other‐related MTT. In conclusion, individuals with a high level of schizotypy have altered MTT, and cannot benefit from the self‐advantage effect on the specificity of MTT.
Рассмотрены существующие концепции и разные подходы к описанию нарушений социального познания при шизофрении. Цель исследования: изучение у больных шизофренией составляющих нарушений социального интеллекта, их взаимосвязей в более широком контексте клинических симптомов. Обследовано 210 больных с разной степенью выраженности клинической симптоматики, находящихся в состоянии ремиссии, и 120 психически здоровых лиц. Использовались шкала клинической оценки PANSS, а также методики, направленные на квалификацию нарушений социального интеллекта, определение уровня социальной ангедонии. Установлено значимое снижение показателей социального интеллекта у больных; страдают показатели операциональной составляющей социального интеллекта, включая распознавание эмоций, социальная компетентность. Результаты сравнительного, корреляционного, факторного и регрессионного анализа позволяют утверждать, что преимущественное влияние на параметры социального интеллекта оказывают симптомы негативного класса, социальной ангедонии. Социальная ангедония квалифицирована не только как важная особенность, присущая больным шизофренией, но и как условие, опосредующее влияние клинических симптомов шизофрении на иные нарушения социального интеллекта у больных.
Both schizophrenia and post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are associated with cognitive impairments, including deficits in learning and memory. This chapter begins with consideration of the premorbid factors that can predispose to schizophrenia and PTSD. It explores cognitive disturbances in schizophrenia and PTSD, highlighting studies that do provide direct comparisons. Numerous studies have shown that performance on simple episodic memory tasks, which involve learning, recall, and recognition, is impaired in schizophrenia. Working memory tends to be one of the domains of cognitive function most affected in schizophrenia. In general, people with PTSD tend to recall autobiographical memories with decreased episode specificity. Exposure to certain types of therapy may affect how autobiographical memories are stored and retrieved for individuals with PTSD. There is a complex pattern of interconnection between schizophrenia and PTSD. Overall it appears that cognitive impairment, including difficulties with memory, is greater in schizophrenia than in PTSD.
Increasing evidence suggests that impaired autobiographical memory (AM) mechanisms may be associated with the onset and maintenance of psychopathology. However, there is not yet a comprehensive review of the components of autobiographical memory in schizophrenic patients. The first aim of this review is a synthesis of evidence about the functioning of AM in schizophrenic patients. The main autobiographical elements reviewed in schizophrenic patients include the study of overgeneral memory (form); self-defining memories (contents); consciousness during the process of retrieval (awareness), and the abnormal early reminiscence bump (distribution). AM impairments have been involved in the clinical diagnosis and prognosis of other psychopathologies, especially depression. The second aim is to examine potential parallels between the mechanisms responsible for the onset and maintenance of disturbed AM in other clinical diagnosis and the mechanisms of disturbed autobiographical memory functioning in schizophrenic patients. Cognitive therapies for schizophrenic patients are increasingly demanded. The third aim is the suggestion of key elements for the adaptation of components of autobiographical recall in cognitive therapies for the treatment of symptoms and consequences of schizophrenia.
Meta-analyses and reviews on cognitive disorders in schizophrenia have shown that the most robust and common cognitive deficits are found in episodic memory and executive functions. More complex memory domains, such as autobiographical memory (AM), are also impaired in schizophrenia, but such impairments are reported less often despite their negative impact on patients' outcome. In contrast to episodic memory, assessed in laboratory tasks, memories of past personal events are much more complex and directly relate to the self. The meta-analysis included 20 studies, 571 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder, and 503 comparison subjects. It found moderate-to-large effect sizes with regard to the 3 parameters commonly used to assess AM: memory specificity (g = -0.97), richness of detail (g = -1.40), and conscious recollection (g = -0.62). These effect sizes were in the same range as those found in other memory domains in schizophrenia; for this reason, we propose that defective memories of personal past events should be regarded as a major cognitive impairment in this illness.
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Des troubles de l’identité personnelle sont décrits depuis longtemps dans la schizophrénie, or les mécanismes cognitifs de ces perturbations restent encore mal compris. Afin de mieux comprendre ces mécanismes, nous avons exploré la façon dont les patients souffrant de schizophrénie organisent le récit autobiographique de leur vie. Nous avons ainsi analysé la cohérence causale des récits de vie de patients en les comparant aux récits de sujets contrôles. Nos résultats montrent que les récits des patients contiennent moins de liens entre les événements qu’ils ont vécus et leur identité que les récits des sujets contrôles. De plus, ces liens correspondent davantage à des relations de causalité élémentaires et moins à des réflexions plus complexes reliant les événements vécus à l’identité, et les intégrant dans le contexte plus général de l’ensemble de la vie de l’individu. Ces éléments indiquent que la cohérence causale des récits des patients est diminuée. Nous avons enfin trouvé que la diminution de la cohérence des récits est corrélée positivement aux troubles exécutifs des patients. Ces résultats suggèrent que les troubles cognitifs présents dans la schizophrénie pourraient altérer la capacité des patients à établir des liens entre les événements marquants de leur vie et leur identité. Ces altérations pourraient rendre compte d’une construction défaillante de l’identité chez les patients et constituer une cible d’intervention thérapeutique spécifique.
Research exploring metacognition and social cognition in schizophrenia has tended to use control groups experiencing relatively little adversity. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the deficits found among persons with schizophrenia are merely the result of greater life adversity. To explore this issue, we assessed metacognition and social cognition among 40 participants with schizophrenia and 25 adults with HIV. We chose to explore this phenomenon in people with HIV given the literature suggesting that this group experiences significant adversity. Measures of metacognition and social cognition included the Metacognition Assessment Scale (MAS), the Hinting test, and the Bell-Lysaker Emotion Recognition Test (BLERT). After controlling for education, years since diagnosis, and memory, the schizophrenia group performed more poorly on the MAS and the Hinting test. No differences were found on the BLERT. The results are consistent with the possibility that schizophrenia is linked to decrements in metacognition and some forms of social cognition.
Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness, which affects sense of identity. While the ability to have a coherent vision of the self (i.e., self-images) relies partly on its reciprocal relationships with autobiographical memories, little is known about how memories ground "self-images" in schizophrenia. Twenty-five patients with schizophrenia and 25 controls were asked to give six autobiographical memories related to four self-statements they considered essential for defining their identity. Results showed that patients' self-images were more passive than those of controls. Autobiographical memories underlying self-images were less thematically linked to these self-images in patients. We also found evidence of a weakened sense of self and a deficient organization of autobiographical memories grounding the self in schizophrenia. These abnormalities may account for the poor cohesiveness of the self in schizophrenia.
Much memory research involves recording several autobiographical memories for each of several people. These memories are not independent of each other, an assumption of the statistical procedures used in many cognitive psychology papers. In recent years there have been both statistical and computational advances for modelling these hierarchical data structures. This is often called multilevel modelling. Using data from recent memory research (Burt et al., 1995), I describe this approach and show how it compares favourably with traditional approaches. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Résumé. La mémoire autobiographique forge notre sentiment d'identité et de continuité dans le temps. Les conceptions actuelles proposent de distinguer une composante sémantique personnelle stockant la connaissance générale de son passé, et une composante épisodique, contenant des événements personnels spécifiques. Cet article a pour
Two diarists recorded true and false events and thoughts over a period of 5 months. In recognition tests taken 7 months later, they discriminated between true and false diary entries and judged their state of memory awareness as recollective experience, feeling of familiarity, or no distinct state of awareness. Correct recognition rates for true events and thoughts were high. Events were associated with recollective experience and thoughts with feelings of familiarity. Incorrect recognition was higher for thoughts than events. False memories were associated with familiarity or no distinct state of awareness. For correct memories of events only, factors influencing encoding (importance, consequentiality, etc.) interacted with state of memory awareness at retrieval. The quality of phenomenal experience, based on the associations between encoding and retrieval, may be critical in leading a remeberer to accept a memory as true. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The organization of autobiographical memory is critical for both theory and application in many areas of psychology. Several theories of autobiographical memory state that memories are nested within higher-order cognitive structures. A procedure developed by Brown and Schopflocher is extended and used to explore similarities of various characteristics within these structures, which they call ‘event clusters’. This phrase, event cluster, is used to describe events which cue one another. The purpose of this paper is to explore the similarities of events within the same cluster. We find that memories within a cluster are more likely to be similar with respect to clarity, emotion, importance, happiness and the estimated date in which they occurred compared with events from other clusters. Further, having nearly 1900 memories allows hypotheses about the relationships among clarity, emotion and importance to be examined in a way that is not possible with many other autobiographical data sets. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Much memory research involves recording several autobiographical memories for each of several people. These memories are not independent of each other, an assumption of the statistical procedures used in many cognitive psychology papers. In recent years there have been both statistical and computational advances for modelling these hierarchical data structures. This is often called multilevel modelling. Using data from recent memory research (Burt et al., 1995), I describe this approach and show how it compares favourably with traditional approaches.
Association and context constitute two of the central ideas in the history of episodic memory research. Following a brief discussion of the history of these ideas, we review data that demonstrate the complementary roles of temporal contiguity and semantic relatedness in determining the order in which subjects recall lists of items and the timing of their successive recalls. These analyses reveal that temporal contiguity effects persist over very long time scales, a result that challenges traditional psychological and neuroscientific models of association. The form of the temporal contiguity effect is conserved across all of the major recall tasks and even appears in item recognition when subjects respond with high confidence. The nearuniversal form of the contiguity effect and its appearance at diverse time scales is shown to place tight constraints on the major theories of association.
Previous studies have shown that patients with schizophrenia are impaired in recalling specific events from their personal past. However, the relationship between autobiographical memory impairments and disturbance of the sense of identity in schizophrenia has not been investigated in detail. In this study the authors investigated schizophrenic patients' ability to recall self-defining memories; that is, memories that play an important role in building and maintaining the self-concept. Results showed that patients recalled as many specific self-defining memories as healthy participants. However, patients with schizophrenia exhibited an abnormal reminiscence bump and reported different types of thematic content (i.e., they recalled less memories about past achievements and more memories regarding hospitalisation and stigmatisation of illness). Furthermore, the findings suggest that impairments in extracting meaning from personal memories could represent a core disturbance of autobiographical memory in patients with schizophrenia.
The self-memory relationship is thought to be bidirectional, in such a way that memories provide context for the self, and equally, the self exercises control over retrieval (Conway, 2005). Autobiographical memories are not distributed equally across the life span; instead, memories peak between ages 10 and 30. This reminiscence bump has been suggested to support the emergence of a stable and enduring self. In the present study, the relationship between memory accessibility and self was explored with a novel methodology that used generation of self images in the form of I am statements. Memories generated from I am cues clustered around the time of emergence for that particular self image. We argue that, when a new self-image is formed, it is associated with the encoding of memories that are relevant to that self and that remain highly accessible to the rememberer later in life. This study offers a new methodology for academics and clinicians interested in the relationship between memory and identity.
The process by which experience is divided into events was examined. Experiment 1 involved diarists recording their experiences over a 3-month period. Diary entries were later transcribed onto cards and the diarists arranged their cards so as to define events they had experienced, and in a separate phase arranged their cards so as to describe the themes that reflected their life. Examination of event- and theme-building strategies indicated that boundaries were frequently used, and events and themes were often formed from clusters of experience combined using content association rather than temporal sequence. Experiment 2 involved photographs taken by the participants, employed the same procedures as in Experiment 1, and revealed event- and theme-building strategies similar to those identified in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3 the size of the stimulus set from which events and themes were constructed was manipulated; this did not influence construction strategies. Overall, the experiments show that both autobiographical events and themes frequently consist of episodes taken from more than 1 day.
The aim of the study was to elucidate the factors contributing to the severity and persistence of delusional conviction. One hundred participants with current delusions, recruited for a treatment trial of psychological therapy (PRP trial), were assessed at baseline on measures of reasoning, emotions, and dimensions of delusional experience. Reasoning biases (belief inflexibility, jumping to conclusions, and extreme responding) were found to be present in one half of the sample. The hypothesis was confirmed that reasoning biases would be related to delusional conviction. There was evidence that belief inflexibility mediated the relationship between jumping to conclusions and delusional conviction. Emotional states were not associated with the reasoning processes investigated. Anxiety, but not depression, made an independent contribution to delusional conviction.
It has become increasingly clear that the simple neurodevelopmental model fails to explain many aspects of schizophrenia including the timing of the onset, and the nature of the abnormal perceptions. Furthermore, we do not know why some members of the general population have anomalous experiences but remain well, while others enter the prodrome of psychosis, and a minority progress to frank schizophrenia. We suggest that genes or developmental damage result in individuals vulnerable to dopamine deregulation. In contemporary society, this is often compounded by abuse of drugs such as amphetamines and cannabis, which then propel the individual into a state of dopamine-induced misinterpretation of the environment. Certain types of social adversity such as migration and social isolation, as well as affective change can also contribute to this. Thereafter, biased cognitive appraisal processes result in delusional interpretation of the abnormal perceptual experiences. Thus, a plausible model of the onset of psychosis needs to draw not only on neuroscience, but also on the insights of social psychiatry and cognitive psychology.
The reminiscence bump corresponds to a marked increase in autobiographical memories of events that occurred when normal people were aged 10 to 30 years, a critical period for the formation of identity. The reminiscence bump was studied in 27 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 27 control participants. They were asked to recall 20 specific autobiographical events that had occurred during their lifetime and to indicate the subjective states of awareness associated with the recalled memories using the Remember/Know procedure. Finally, participants were asked to state whether recalled memories related to private or public events. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia recalled less specific memories than controls and exhibited an earlier reminiscence bump. They recalled more public, and less private events than controls, and they gave fewer Remember responses. The reminiscence bump peaked in the 16 to 25-year period for patients and the 21 to 25-year period for controls. These findings indicate that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia exhibit an early and abnormal reminiscence bump, with an impairment of conscious recollection associated with memories highly relevant to personal identity. They suggest that schizophrenia is associated with an impairment of autobiographical memories of events that had occurred during the last stage of personal identity development.
briefly summarizes Kolodner's . . . computational theory of autobiographical memories, as well as assumptions from a similar theory proposed by Schank
addresses the kinds of information that comprise people's autobiographical memories and tests a hypothesis suggested by computational theories that people have extensive idiosyncratic, generic knowledge about events
addresses how people organize this information and tests a hypothesis suggested by computational theories that activities and generalized actions form the primary organization of autobiographical memories
presents a theory of autobiographical memories that has evolved from our work and that is serving as a framework for our current research (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article provides an overview of a series of event-cueing experiments conducted to investigate how autobiographical memory is organized at the event level. In these experiments, participants ®rst generate a set of personal events (cueing events) and then respond to each by retrieving a second event memory (the cued event). Subsequently, relations between cued and cueing events are coded, and all events are dated and rated for importance. This approach has produced two general ®ndings. First, we have found that event memories are often embedded in narrative-like event clusters. Second, across experiments, we have observed large, systematic dierences in the temporal distribution of the event pairs. In this article, we review evidence concerning the organizational importance of event clusters. We then examine the temporal distributions obtained from three representative experiments and account for the marked dierences in these distributions by considering how task demands, memory structures, and response strategies aect retrieval from autobiographical memory.
The Self-Memory System (SMS) is a conceptual framework that emphasizes the interconnectedness of self and memory. Within this framework memory is viewed as the data base of the self. The self is conceived as a complex set of active goals and associated self-images, collectively referred to as the working self. The relationship between the working self and long-term memory is a reciprocal one in which autobiographical knowledge constrains what the self is, has been, and can be, whereas the working self-modulates access to long-term knowledge. Specific proposals concerning the role of episodic memories and autobiographical knowledge in the SMS, their function in defining the self, the neuroanatomical basis of the system, its development, relation to consciousness, and possible evolutionary history are considered with reference to current and new findings as well as to findings from the study of impaired autobiographical remembering.
Emotional memories play an important role in our day-to-day experience, informing many of our minute-to-minute decisions (eg,
where to go for dinner, what are the likely consequences of not attending a meeting), as well as our long-term goal setting.
Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in memory for emotional experiences, particularly over longer delay periods,
which may contribute to deficits in goal-related behavior and symptoms of amotivation and anhedonia. This article reviews
factors that are known to influence emotional memory in healthy subjects, applies these factors to results from emotional
memory studies with individuals with schizophrenia, and then uses extant neurobiological models of emotional memory formation
to develop hypotheses about biological processes that might particularly contribute to emotional memory impairment in schizophrenia.
Remote memory, as the term is used in the present study, refers to semantic information or autobiographical information for events and facts that are thought to be stored in the neocortex. In schizophrenia, findings of abnormalities in remote memory have been reported. However, it is unclear whether these are due to retrieval factors or other factors (e.g. paucity of information, disorganized lexicosemantic representations). Furthermore, it is unclear whether there is a temporal gradient in remote memory. In the first study, we utilized a cueing procedure for semantic fluency in order to determine whether retrieval factors play a marked role in impairments. In comparing patients with schizophrenia to patients with affective disorder and normal controls, we found that cueing had an equivalent effect upon all groups, suggesting that marked retrieval deficits were not the primary determinant of poor performance in fluency. Furthermore, we found that semantic fluency was disproportionately impaired vis-a-vis phonologic fluency, suggesting that abnormalities may be greater in storage areas presumed to be in temporal parietal cortex rather than in prefrontal cortex (which has been associated with retrieval deficits). In the second study, we examined the temporal gradient of autobiographical memory in patients with schizophrenia and normal controls. Whereas normal controls exhibited high and equivalent performance across childhood, early adult, and recent memories, patients with schizophrenia exhibited a u-shaped profile perhaps unique in the neuropsychiatric literature. This may reflect a combination of secondary memory impairments which effect the acquisition of new information coupled to very mildly accelerated rate of forgetting, 'recency' effects, and/or inefficient encoding. Taken together, these studies provide further support for the notion that schizophrenia has a relatively unique pattern of neuropsychological deficit based on neocortical dysfunction that includes, though is not restricted to, temporoparietal regions.
Incl. app., bibliographical notes and references, frequently asked questions: pp. 105-138, index
An account of episodic memories is developed that focuses on the types of knowledge they represent, their properties, and the functions they might serve. It is proposed that episodic memories consist of episodic elements, summary records of experience often in the form of visual images, associated to a conceptual frame that provides a conceptual context. Episodic memories are embedded in a more complex conceptual system in which they can become the basis of autobiographical memories. However, the function of episodic memories is to keep a record of progress with short-term goals and access to most episodic memories is lost soon after their formation. Finally, it is suggested that developmentally episodic memories form the basis of the conceptual system and it is from sets of episodic memories that early non-verbal conceptual knowledge is abstracted.
The study investigated the structure of autobiographical memory using reaction time measures. A total of 18 participants took photographs over their summer holidays and then reacted to pairs of these photographs displayed via a computer. They also subsequently sorted their photographs according to the autobiographical themes and events with which they were associated. When photographic sequence and the physical similarities in the photographs were controlled for by considering the results of "stranger" participants who were unfamiliar with the photographs, reaction times were significantly faster to pairs of photographs from the same theme or event. The results are consistent with currently held assumptions about the structure of autobiographical memory. Furthermore, the results suggest that reaction time measures may provide a valuable means by which aspects of autobiographical memory can be explored.
About 60 autobiographical books and articles written by schizophrenics during or after their psychotic episodes were examined for descriptions of changes in the patients' perceptual and cognitive experiences. Frequently reported perceptual changes included both enhanced and muted sensory awareness and numerous specific auditory and visual disturbances. Often mentioned cognitive experiences included attentional deficits, both racing and retarded thinking, increased associations between ideas, mental exhaustion, lack of recognition of familiar words, people, and objects, memory deficits, thought blocking, disturbances in language production and comprehension, mistaking identities, and distorted sense of time. The article includes many descriptive quotations that provide rich glimpses into the inner world of the schizophrenic. It presents an argument for the continued, systematic exploration of patients' subjective experiences.
Regression equations developed by Crawford, Allan & Jack (1992) to estimate full-length WAIS-R IQs from seven short-forms were evaluated in healthy (N = 153) and neurological (N = 471) cross-validation samples. In the healthy sample the correlations between the short-forms and full-length IQs did not differ significantly from those obtained by Crawford et al. (1992). In the neurological sample the six- and seven-subtest short-forms, proposed by Crawford et al. (1992) and Warrington, James & Maciejewski (1986) respectively, differed from the other short-forms in that they had significantly higher criterion validity coefficients and did not systematically under- or overestimate IQs.
Schizophrenia impairs episodic memory in its critical feature, autonoetic awareness, i.e., the type of awareness that is characterized by mentally reliving events from one's personal past. It spares noetic awareness, another form of awareness based on feelings of familiarity. We investigated the hypothesis that the impairment of autonoetic awareness is related to defective information that binds together separate aspects of events.
An experiential approach to recognition memory was used. Twenty-five patients with schizophrenia and 25 normal subjects performed or watched actions consisting of pairing objects. Then, they had to recognize pairs of objects and who paired them (source recognition). Subjects were also asked to provide a "remember" (autonoetic awareness) or a "know" (noetic awareness) response according to their subjective state at the time they recognized each pair of objects and each source.
Patients exhibited an impaired recognition memory. When actions were observed, recognition of pairs of objects, but not of source, was no better than chance. There was a reduction in frequency of autonoetic awareness, its consistency throughout recognition of objects and source, and its relationship to source discrimination accuracy. Recognition was based largely on noetic awareness.
Patients with schizophrenia are unable to link the separate aspects of events into a cohesive, memorable, and distinctive whole. The corollary of this defective relational binding is a quantitative and qualitative impairment of autonoetic awareness.
Autobiographical memory is intrinsically related to the self and personal identity. This study investigated whether both personal episodic memory and semantic memory are impaired in schizophrenia, a disease characterized by an abnormal personal identity. Personal episodic memory and personal semantic memory were investigated in 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 normal subjects using an autobiographical fluency task and an autobiographical memory inquiry. Autobiographical memory scores and the proportion of specific memories were lower in patients with schizophrenia than in normal subjects. The deficit of personal episodic and semantic memory, as assessed by the autobiographical memory inquiry and the autobiographical fluency task, respectively, was most apparent after the onset of clinical symptoms. Schizophrenia is associated with an impairment of both personal episodic and semantic memory and with a reduction of specific autobiographical memories. Those impairments are consistent with the existence of an abnormal personal identity in patients with schizophrenia.
The current study aimed to provide evidence for the context-memory hypothesis, which proposes that schizophrenia is linked to a deficit in retrieving contextual information and in binding the different components of a memory together. A new task was developed in which memory for the content of events could be assessed in conjunction with memory for both source and temporal information. Forty-three patients with schizophrenia and 24 normal controls took part in the study. Patients were found to be less accurate in identifying the source and temporal context of events. Furthermore, whereas controls tended to identify correctly both source and temporal context of events, patients tended to have a more fractionated recollection of those events. The study provides support for the context-memory hypothesis by demonstrating that patients with schizophrenia show a fundamental deficit in binding contextual cues together to form a coherent representation of an event in memory.
Whether or not conscious recollection in autobiographical memory is affected in schizophrenia is unknown. The aim of this study was to address this issue using an experiential approach. An autobiographical memory enquiry was used in combination with the Remember/Know procedure. Twenty-two patients with schizophrenia and 22 normal subjects were asked to recall specific autobiographical memories from four lifetime periods and to indicate the subjective states of awareness associated with the recall of what happened, when and where. They gave Remember, Know or Guess responses according to whether they recalled these aspects of the event on the basis of conscious recollection, simply knowing, or guessing. Results showed that the frequency and consistency of Remember responses was significantly lower in patients than in comparison subjects. In contrast, the frequency of Know responses was not significantly different, whereas the frequency of patients' Guess responses was significantly enhanced. It is concluded that the frequency and consistency of conscious recollection in autobiographical memory is reduced in patients with schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is widely regarded to be a neurocognitive disorder, i.e. a dysfunction of the neural and cognitive systems subserving thinking and reasoning, memory, language, attention and perception. However, although cognitive dysfunction is certainly a cardinal feature of schizophrenia, we argue that dysfunction of emotional brain systems may be even more important in understanding the disorder. Indeed, in recent years research on the emotional aspects of schizophrenia is accumulating at a high rate. Here, we review the available evidence regarding behavioral and neural manifestations of abnormal emotional systems in schizophrenia. This evidence comes from patient studies using tasks of emotion recognition, emotional expression and emotional experience. Furthermore, studies of schizophrenia patients using structural MRI have demonstrated volume reductions of the amygdala, a key structure of the emotional brain. Finally, functional fMRI studies have revealed an attenuated response of the amygdala to emotional stimuli as compared to neutral stimuli. Beyond demonstrating that dysfunction of the emotional brain is a hallmark of schizophrenia, we propose a model that integrates previous neural accounts of emotional abnormalities in schizophrenia, and specifies a neural basis for differential emotional correlates of positive and negative symptoms. Specifically, a lesion to the amygdala in combination with reduced interconnectivity with the prefrontal cortex is hypothesized to give rise to reduced emotional expression (affective flattening) and emotion recognition deficits. In contrast, an imbalance in dopamine systems may underlie increased anxiety and autonomic arousal, and the assignment of emotional salience to insignificant stimuli, associated with psychosis. We also hypothesize that the central and basolateral nuclei of the amygdala may contribute differentially to these abnormalities.
The influence of emotion on episodic and autobiographical memory in schizophrenia was investigated. Using an experiential approach, the states of awareness accompanying recollection of pictures from the IAPS and of associated autobiographical memories was recorded. Results show that schizophrenia impairs episodic and autobiographical memories in their critical feature: autonoetic awareness, i.e., the type of awareness experienced when mentally reliving events from one's past. Schizophrenia was also associated with a reduction of specific autobiographical memories. The impact of stimulus valence on memory performance was moderated by clinical status. Patients with schizophrenia recognized more positive than negative pictures, and recalled more positive than negative autobiographical memories while controls displayed the opposite pattern. A hypothesis in terms of a fundamental executive deficit underlying these impairments is proposed.
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