title: Alogia and formal thought disorder: differential patterns of verbal fluency task performance.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is evidence that alogia and formal thought disorder (FTD), two prominent speech symptoms in schizophrenia, are associated with different patterns of verbal fluency task deficits. Verbal fluency is thought to involve several cognitive mechanisms, including controlled retrieval, semantic memory, and context processing.
  
  
  METHODS
  The current research examined whether alogia and FTD were associated with different patterns of verbal fluency performance and whether these patterns of verbal fluency performance would implicate deficits in controlled retrieval, semantic memory, or context processing. In the current research, 34 people with schizophrenia completed letter and category fluency tasks and detailed ratings of alogia and FTD symptoms were made from typed transcripts.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, alogia was associated with increased response latency between each word on the category fluency task, suggesting an association between alogia and poor controlled retrieval. In contrast, FTD was associated with a decreased proportion of semantically-related words on letter fluency, suggesting an association between FTD and poor context processing.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Alogia and FTD appear to be associated with unique patterns of fluency performance, implicating separate cognitive mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
authors.forename: Anna R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Docherty
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Berenbaum
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Kerns
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001037:Aphasia / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012559:Schizophrenia; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013850:Thinking; D014705:Verbal Behavior