Brébion Gildas, Stephan-Otto Christian, Huerta-Ramos Elena, Ochoa Susana, Usall Judith, Abellán-Vega Helena, Roca Mercedes, Haro Josep Maria
Unit of Research and Development, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu.
Neuropsychology. 2015 Jan;29(1):17-24. doi: 10.1037/neu0000104. Epub 2014 Jun 16.
Previous research has revealed the contribution of decreased processing speed and reduced working memory span in verbal and visual memory impairment in patients with schizophrenia. The role of affective symptoms in verbal memory has also emerged in a few studies. The authors designed a picture recognition task to investigate the impact of these factors on visual encoding.
Two types of pictures (black and white vs. colored) were presented under 2 different conditions of context encoding (either displayed at a specific location or in association with another visual stimulus). It was assumed that the process of encoding associated pictures was more effortful than that of encoding pictures that were presented alone. Working memory span and processing speed were assessed.
In the patient group, working memory span was significantly associated with the recognition of the associated pictures but not significantly with that of the other pictures. Controlling for processing speed eliminated the patients' deficit in the recognition of the colored pictures and greatly reduced their deficit in the recognition of the black-and-white pictures. The recognition of the black-and-white pictures was inversely related to anxiety in men and to depression in women.
Working memory span constrains the effortful visual encoding processes in patients, whereas processing speed decrement accounts for most of their visual encoding deficit. Affective symptoms also have an impact on visual encoding, albeit differently in men and women.
先前的研究揭示了加工速度下降和工作记忆广度降低在精神分裂症患者言语和视觉记忆损害中的作用。情感症状在言语记忆中的作用也在一些研究中有所显现。作者设计了一项图片识别任务，以研究这些因素对视觉编码的影响。
在两种不同的情境编码条件下（要么显示在特定位置，要么与另一个视觉刺激相关联）呈现两种类型的图片（黑白图片与彩色图片）。假定对相关图片进行编码的过程比单独呈现的图片编码过程更费力。评估了工作记忆广度和加工速度。
在患者组中，工作记忆广度与相关图片的识别显著相关，但与其他图片的识别无显著相关性。控制加工速度消除了患者在彩色图片识别方面的缺陷，并大大减少了他们在黑白图片识别方面的缺陷。黑白图片的识别与男性的焦虑和女性的抑郁呈负相关。
工作记忆广度限制了患者费力的视觉编码过程，而加工速度下降是其视觉编码缺陷的主要原因。情感症状也对视觉编码有影响，尽管在男性和女性中有所不同。
