Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
J Abnorm Psychol. 2012 Feb;121(1):109-18. doi: 10.1037/a0023599. Epub 2011 May 9.
Diminished expression of speech is a pernicious feature of both schizophrenia and schizotypy--defined as the personality organization reflecting a putative genetic schizophrenia liability. As yet, the mechanism underlying diminished expression is unclear. We tested the hypothesis that diminished expression reflects a cognitive resource issue--that is, as cognitive resources are depleted, expression becomes diminished in individuals with psychometrically defined schizotypy. Acoustic analysis of natural speech was procured during experimentally manipulated baseline and high cognitive-load dual tasks and examined in 38 individuals with psychometrically defined schizotypy and 34 controls. For both groups, expression significantly decreased as a function of increased task demands, although there were no group differences in expression or magnitude of change across baseline to high cognitive-load conditions. Participants with self-reported constricted affect showed significant reductions in expression under high-load versus baseline speaking conditions relative to other schizotypal and control participants. Moreover, psychometrically defined schizotypal participants with poor cognitive performance on the high-load task, suggestive of depleted cognitive resources, also showed expressivity reductions compared with other participants. These findings suggest that diminished expression occurs as a function of limited cognitive resources in psychometrically defined schizotypy.
言语表达减弱是精神分裂症和精神分裂型特质（定义为反映潜在遗传精神分裂症倾向的人格组织）的一个有害特征。然而，表达减弱的机制尚不清楚。我们测试了以下假设：表达减弱反映了认知资源问题，即随着认知资源的消耗，具有心理测量学定义的精神分裂型特质的个体的表达会减弱。在实验性操纵的基线和高认知负荷双重任务期间获取自然言语的声学分析，并在 38 名具有心理测量学定义的精神分裂型特质的个体和 34 名对照者中进行了检查。对于这两个组，表达都随着任务需求的增加而显著降低，尽管在基线到高认知负荷条件下，表达或变化幅度在组间没有差异。与其他精神分裂型特质和对照组参与者相比，报告有情感受限的参与者在高负荷与基线说话条件下的表达显著降低。此外，在高负荷任务上认知表现较差的具有心理测量学定义的精神分裂型特质参与者，表明认知资源消耗，与其他参与者相比，表达能力也降低。这些发现表明，在心理测量学定义的精神分裂型特质中，表达减弱是认知资源有限的结果。
