title: Perceptually or conceptually driven recognition: on the specificities of the memory deficit in schizophrenia.
abstract: This study explored the effects of exemplar changes on visual object recognition in patients with schizophrenia and paired control subjects. The experimental design was derived from the process-dissociation procedure (PDP: Jacoby, 1991). The objects presented at test could be the same exemplar as at study (physically identical picture), a different exemplar of the same object category, or a new, non-studied object. In the inclusion task, participants had to generalize their recognition to the conceptual level by accepting both different and identical exemplars as old. In the exclusion task, on the other hand, they had to accept only the same exemplars of the studied objects as old. Overall, performance was better on the inclusion task than on the exclusion task; schizophrenia patients performed worse than controls on the inclusion task but not the exclusion task, misrecognizing different exemplars more often than healthy controls. The present findings reveal that both recollection and familiarity are impaired in patients with schizophrenia, who present a relational, conceptually driven memory deficit. This deficit does not allow them to recognize an object as a member of a specific category independently of perceptual variations. This retrieval mode influences their subjective awareness of items׳ familiarity, and should be considered as a target for remediation.
authors.affiliation: Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive (UMR 7290), Fédération de recherche 3C (FR 3512), 13331 Marseille cedex 3, France. Electronic address: Fabrice.Guillaume@univ-amu.fr.
authors.forename: Fabrice
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Guillaume
authors.affiliation: Hôpital de la Conception, Pôle Psychiatrique, 145 boulevard Baille, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Emilie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.affiliation: Service Hospitalo-Universitaire de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Ste. Marguerite, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Faget
authors.affiliation: Service Hospitalo-Universitaire de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Ste. Marguerite, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Raphaelle
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Richieri
authors.affiliation: Service Hospitalo-Universitaire de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Ste. Marguerite, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lançon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning; D001364:Awareness; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011594:Psychometrics; D012016:Reference Values; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology
keywords: Conceptual priming; Familiarity; Object recognition; PDP; Perceptual priming; Recollection; Schizophrenia