Impaired strategic regulation of contents of conscious awareness in schizophrenia.
Conscious awareness comprises two distinct states, autonoetic and noetic awareness. Schizophrenia impairs autonoetic, but not noetic, awareness. We investigated the strategic regulation of relevant and irrelevant contents of conscious awareness in schizophrenia using a directed forgetting paradigm. Twenty-one patients with schizophrenia and 21 normal controls were presented with words and told to learn some of them and forget others. In a subsequent test, they were asked to recognize all the words they had seen previously and give remember, know or guess responses according to whether they recognized words on the basis of autonoetic awareness, noetic awareness, or guessing. Overall, patients showed the same degree of a directed forgetting effect as normal subjects. However, whereas the effect was observed both for remember and know responses in normal subjects, it was observed for know, but not for remember, responses in patients. These results indicate that patients with schizophrenia exhibit an impaired strategic regulation of contents of autonetic awareness for relevant and irrelevant information.
Sonntag
Philippe
P
Unité INSERM 405 Psychopathologie et Pharmacologie de la Cognition, Clinique Psychiatrique, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, 1 place de l'Hôpital, BP 426, Strasbourg Cedex 67091, France.
Gokalsing
Erick
E
Olivier
Carinne
C
Robert
Philippe
P
Burglen
Franck
F
Kauffmann-Muller
Françoise
F
Huron
Caroline
C
Salame
Pierre
P
Danion
Jean-Marie
JM
D000328:Adult; D003243:Consciousness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology