title: Relationships between divided attention and working memory impairment in people with schizophrenia.
abstract: Recent studies suggest that people with schizophrenia (PSZ) have difficulty distributing their attention broadly. Other research suggests that PSZ have reduced working memory (WM) capacity. This study tested whether these findings reflect a common underlying deficit. We measured the ability to distribute attention by means of the Useful Field of View (UFOV) task, in which participants must distribute attention so that they can discriminate a foveal target and simultaneously localize a peripheral target. Participants included 50 PSZ and 52 healthy control subjects. We found that PSZ exhibited severe impairments in UFOV performance, that UFOV performance was highly correlated with WM capacity in PSZ (r = -.61), and that UFOV impairments could not be explained by either impaired low-level processing or a generalized deficit. These results suggest that a common mechanism explains deficits in the ability to distribute attention broadly, reduced WM capacity, and other aspects of impaired cognition in schizophrenia. We hypothesize that this mechanism may involve abnormal local circuit dynamics that cause a hyperfocusing of resources onto a small number of internal representations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; bgray@mprc.umaryland.edu.
authors.forename: Bradley E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland;
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland;
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland;
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Harvey
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Mind & Brain, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Carly J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Leonard
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Mind & Brain, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Steven J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Luck
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland;
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gold
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: attention; broad monitoring; schizophrenia; spatial; working memory
references.citation: Vis cogn. 2009;17(1-2):
references.pmid: 24235876
references.citation: Schizophr Res. 2012 Jan;134(1):70-5
references.pmid: 22079944
references.citation: Am J Psychiatry. 2008 Feb;165(2):203-13
references.pmid: 18172019
references.citation: J Psychiatr Res. 2011 Oct;45(10):1346-51
references.pmid: 21550051
references.citation: Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Feb 1;67(3):255-62
references.pmid: 19897178
references.citation: Gerontology. 2002 Sep-Oct;48(5):329-40
references.pmid: 12169801
references.citation: Schizophr Res. 2003 Feb 1;59(2-3):199-209
references.pmid: 12414076
references.citation: Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2006 May;21(4):275-86
references.pmid: 16704918
references.citation: Am J Psychiatry. 2008 Feb;165(2):214-20
references.pmid: 18172018
references.citation: J Abnorm Psychol. 2003 Feb;112(1):61-71
references.pmid: 12653414
references.citation: Cereb Cortex. 2013 Jul;23(7):1582-92
references.pmid: 22661407
references.citation: Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007 May;64(5):532-42
references.pmid: 17485605
references.citation: J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2005 Jul;27(5):529-43
references.pmid: 16019630
references.citation: Schizophr Bull. 2002;28(3):443-58
references.pmid: 12645676
references.citation: Trends Neurosci. 2008 May;31(5):234-42
references.pmid: 18395805
references.citation: Neuropsychol Rev. 2009 Sep;19(3):294-311
references.pmid: 19452280
references.citation: Br J Psychiatry Suppl. 1989 Nov;(7):49-58
references.pmid: 2695141
references.citation: Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Nov 1;64(9):739-49
references.pmid: 18620336
references.citation: Nat Rev Neurosci. 2008 Sep;9(9):696-709
references.pmid: 18714326
references.citation: Percept Psychophys. 1995 Nov;57(8):1241-61
references.pmid: 8539099
references.citation: J Psychiatr Res. 2006 Oct;40(7):599-605
references.pmid: 16890242
references.citation: Exp Brain Res. 1996 Sep;111(2):289-95
references.pmid: 8891659
references.citation: Int J Psychophysiol. 2012 Oct;86(1):108-13
references.pmid: 22771850
references.citation: J Neurosci. 2009 Jul 8;29(27):8726-33
references.pmid: 19587279
references.citation: J Abnorm Psychol. 2013 Nov;122(4):1111-20
references.pmid: 24364614
references.citation: Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1994 Dec;51(12):939-44
references.pmid: 7979881
references.citation: Neuropsychology. 2011 Jan;25(1):76-85
references.pmid: 20919764
references.citation: Neuropsychologia. 2011 Oct;49(12):3370-6
references.pmid: 21871907
references.citation: J Abnorm Psychol. 2012 Feb;121(1):119-28
references.pmid: 21604825
references.citation: J Am Optom Assoc. 1993 Jan;64(1):71-9
references.pmid: 8454831
references.citation: Neuropsychology. 2010 Mar;24(2):192-8
references.pmid: 20230113
references.citation: J Abnorm Psychol. 2012 Aug;121(3):641-8
references.pmid: 22686867
references.citation: Neuropsychology. 2013 Mar;27(2):220-9
references.pmid: 23527650
references.citation: J Abnorm Psychol. 2006 Nov;115(4):658-73
references.pmid: 17100524
references.citation: Nature. 2005 Nov 24;438(7067):500-3
references.pmid: 16306992