Neuropsychological differences between schizophrenic patients with heterogeneous Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance.

This report compares neuropsychological test results of schizophrenic patients with good (5-6 categories achieved) and poor (0-1 categories achieved) performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). It was found that the subjects with poor performance also had substantial deficits on the subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised and the Halstead-Reitan Battery. The subjects with good WCST performance demonstrated a relatively mild degree of impairment on these tests, except for normal performance on the verbal subtests of the WAIS-R. It was concluded that: (1) not all schizophrenic patients have dense perseverative behavior as identified by impaired performance on the WCST; (2) impaired performance on the WCST is accompanied by a variety of other cognitive deficits; and (3) there appear to be measures more sensitive to cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia than the WCST.