title: Hyperfocusing of attention on goal-related information in schizophrenia: Evidence from electrophysiology.
abstract: Schizophrenia clearly involves impairments of attention, but the precise nature of these impairments has been difficult to determine. One possibility is that the deficit in attention is a secondary consequence of a deficit in goal maintenance. However, recent research suggests that people with schizophrenia (PSZ) actually focus attention more strongly on objects containing goal-relevant features. To test these competing hypotheses, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from PSZ (N = 20) and healthy control subjects (HCS; N = 20) while they looked for a particular target color at fixation and tried to ignore lateral distractors that sometimes matched the target color (target-color distractors). Goal maintenance was made trivially easy by the continual presentation of a goal reminder. We found that HCS were able to successfully suppress target-color distractors (leading to a distractor positivity ERP component), whereas PSZ focused attention on these items (leading to an N2-posterior-contralateral ERP component). This suggests that, when maintaining a task set, PSZ engage in aberrant focusing of attention, or hyperfocusing, on goal-relevant features. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Risa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sawaki
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kreither
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Carly J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Leonard
authors.affiliation: Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Samuel T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Kaiser
authors.affiliation: Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.affiliation: Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine.
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gold
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Steven J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Luck
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*