Braff D L
Schizophr Bull. 1981;7(3):499-508. doi: 10.1093/schbul/7.3.499.
There is increasing evidence that schizophrenia is associated with an attentional or information processing deficit or both. These "early deficit" theories challenge the position that schizophrenia is primarily a disorder of thinking and higher cognitive operations. A tachistoscopic backward masking task was applied in matched groups of 20 schizophrenic, 20 schizotypal, and 20 depressive psychiatric inpatients. Resulting data are an index of visual input factors and speed of information processing. Paranoid schizophrenic and schizotypal subjects had unimpaired visual input thresholds but abnormally slow processing compared with the depressives. Since all the schizotypal subjects were nonmedicated, the data add important support to the hypothesis that impaired speed of information processing in schizophrenia spectrum disorders is due to schizophrenia per se and is not secondary to medication effects. These data also support the theoretical link between schizophrenic and schizotypal patients. The importance of the results is discussed, with emphasis on the hypothesized relationship between information processing dysfunction and symptom formation in the schizophrenias.
越来越多的证据表明，精神分裂症与注意力或信息处理缺陷或两者都有关。这些“早期缺陷”理论挑战了精神分裂症主要是一种思维和高级认知操作障碍的观点。对20名精神分裂症患者、20名分裂型人格障碍患者和20名抑郁性精神病住院患者的匹配组进行了速示掩蔽任务。所得数据是视觉输入因素和信息处理速度的指标。偏执型精神分裂症和分裂型人格障碍患者的视觉输入阈值未受损，但与抑郁症患者相比，处理速度异常缓慢。由于所有分裂型人格障碍患者均未服药，这些数据为以下假设提供了重要支持：精神分裂症谱系障碍中信息处理速度受损是由于精神分裂症本身，而非药物作用所致。这些数据还支持了精神分裂症患者与分裂型人格障碍患者之间的理论联系。讨论了结果的重要性，重点是精神分裂症中信息处理功能障碍与症状形成之间的假设关系。
