Cognitive and psychophysiological correlates of positive, negative, and disorganized symptoms in the schizophrenia spectrum.

This study examined the cross-sectional and prospective relationships between cognitive and psychophysiological variables and positive, negative, and disorganized symptoms in 40 outpatients with diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. The results indicated that disorganized symptoms were related to deficits in auditory and visuomotor attentional processing, increased skin conductance orienting response, and lower stress reactivity. Negative symptoms were related to reduced resting heart rate, increased stress reactivity, and deficits in visuomotor processing. Prospective findings indicated that both the cognitive and heart-rate variables might be trait-related aspects of the negative symptoms, while the skin conductance, but not the cognitive, variables might be trait-related aspects of the disorganized symptoms. Positive symptoms were not related to any of the cognitive or psychophysiological variables.