title: Impaired strategic regulation of contents of conscious awareness in schizophrenia.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: 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.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sonntag
authors.forename: Erick
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gokalsing
authors.forename: Carinne
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Olivier
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Robert
authors.forename: Franck
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Burglen
authors.forename: Françoise
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kauffmann-Muller
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huron
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Salame
authors.forename: Jean-Marie
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Danion
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003243:Consciousness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology