Impairment in event sequencing in disorganised and non-disorganised patients with schizophrenia.
It has been suggested that thought disorder in schizophrenia is associated with impaired executive functions and with a defective understanding of others' behaviour. Action sequence knowledge processing and goal detection are considered as crucial components of executive functioning. Here, we used a picture-sequencing task to assess the ability of schizophrenic patients (n = 40) with and without disorganisation symptoms to arrange different types of action sequence representations. Disorganisation symptoms appear to be associated with a general sequencing impairment, while patients without disorganisation symptoms displayed difficulties in ordering sequences requiring subjects to infer mental states in story characters along with a relatively preserved performance in correctly arranging mechanical or behavioural event sequences. These results reveal that only schizophrenic patients without disorganisation symptoms show a selective deficit in mentalising abilities whereas disorganisation symptoms are associated with a more severe event sequencing impairment probably reflecting basic failures of inferential reasoning.
Zalla
Tiziana
T
Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Bron, France. zalla@ext.jussieu.fr
Bouchilloux
Nathalie
N
Labruyere
Nelly
N
Georgieff
Nicolas
N
Bougerol
Thierry
T
Franck
Nicolas
N
D000328:Adult; D003072:Cognition Disorders; D003702:Delusions; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012016:Reference Values; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013850:Thinking