title: Intentional cognitive control impairments in schizophrenia: generalized or specific?
abstract: Impairments in intentional-but not unintentional-inhibition have been found in schizophrenia, and are thought to contribute to the presence of psychotic symptoms. However, it was previously unknown whether this intentional cognitive control impairment extends to intentional resistance to interference-another form of cognitive control. The current study resolved this issue through administering two cognitive control measures: one with a high intentional resistance to interference demand and the other with a high unintentional inhibition demand, to schizophrenia (n = 61) and healthy control (n = 34) participants. Consistent with previous findings, schizophrenia participants' performance on the measures with a high unintentional inhibition demand was intact; however, they were impaired on the task with high intentional resistance to interference demands compared with controls. This latter finding suggests that intentional cognitive control impairments previously found in schizophrenia are not specific to inhibition, but instead are more general, including both processes requiring inhibition (as consistently reported in the literature) and resistance to interference (as found in the current study).
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia. georgiepaulik@graduate.uwa.edu.au
authors.forename: Georgie
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Paulik
authors.forename: Johanna C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Badcock
authors.forename: Murray T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Maybery
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D055815:Young Adult