Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Department of Psychology, The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, UK.
Br J Clin Psychol. 2019 Jun;58(2):140-153. doi: 10.1111/bjc.12205. Epub 2018 Oct 25.
People with schizophrenia have difficulty recalling specific autobiographical events from their past. However, the nature of this difficulty (e.g., whether these problems are only for memories that are negative or positive) and the mechanisms associated with it remain poorly understood.
The present investigation asked patients with schizophrenia (n = 91) and healthy controls (n = 109) to recall memories related to several positive and negative cue words. Participants also completed self-report measures of rumination and depressive symptoms and a measure of verbal fluency to assess executive functioning. Participants' memories were coded for specificity (whether or not they referred to a specific event lasting <24 hr) and valence (positive vs. negative).
Patients recalled fewer specific memories than controls and they showed particular difficulty recalling specific negative memories cued by negative words. For healthy controls, impoverished verbal fluency was associated with recall of fewer specific memories and particularly recall of fewer positive specific memories. These variables were unrelated to specificity amongst patients. Rumination was not associated with specificity in either group.
These findings are discussed with reference to other mechanisms that might contribute towards reduced specificity in schizophrenia, such as the tendency to avoid negative affect, and the implications of this for interventions for schizophrenia and memory specificity problems.
The experience of schizophrenia is associated with problems recalling specific events from one's past. In particular, patients have difficulty recalling specific negative memories from their past. These memory problems are independent of executive functioning difficulties, ruminative tendencies, and also depression symptoms. Interventions for memory problems in schizophrenia must target the difficulty people have in recalling specific negative events.
精神分裂症患者在回忆过去的特定自传体事件时存在困难。然而，这种困难的性质（例如，这些问题仅针对负面或正面的记忆）及其相关机制仍知之甚少。
本研究要求精神分裂症患者（n=91）和健康对照组（n=109）回忆与几个正性和负性提示词相关的记忆。参与者还完成了沉思和抑郁症状的自我报告测量以及言语流畅性的测量，以评估执行功能。参与者的记忆被编码为特异性（是否涉及持续时间<24 小时的特定事件）和效价（正性 vs. 负性）。
与对照组相比，患者回忆的特定记忆较少，并且他们特别难以回忆由负性词提示的特定负性记忆。对于健康对照组，言语流畅性差与回忆特定记忆较少有关，尤其是回忆较少的正性特定记忆有关。这些变量与患者的特异性无关。在两组中，沉思都与特异性无关。
这些发现与其他可能导致精神分裂症特异性降低的机制有关，例如避免负面情绪的倾向，以及这些机制对精神分裂症和记忆特异性问题的干预的影响。
精神分裂症的体验与回忆过去特定事件的问题有关。特别是，患者难以回忆过去的特定负面记忆。这些记忆问题与执行功能困难、沉思倾向以及抑郁症状无关。精神分裂症记忆问题的干预措施必须针对人们回忆特定负面事件的困难。
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