Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia.
Impairment of sustained attention is assumed to be a core cognitive abnormality in schizophrenia. However, this seems inconsistent with a recent hypothesis that in schizophrenia the implementation of selection (i.e., sustained attention) is intact but the control of selection (i.e., switching the fo...
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doaj-14c31c083acf41a1b3782e993d362bb02020-11-25T01:58:56ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032013-01-01810e7806210.1371/journal.pone.0078062Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia.Henderikus G O M SmidSander MartensMarc R de WitteRichard BruggemanImpairment of sustained attention is assumed to be a core cognitive abnormality in schizophrenia. However, this seems inconsistent with a recent hypothesis that in schizophrenia the implementation of selection (i.e., sustained attention) is intact but the control of selection (i.e., switching the focus of attention) is impaired. Mounting evidence supports this hypothesis, indicating that switching of attention is a bigger problem in schizophrenia than maintaining the focus of attention. To shed more light on this hypothesis, we tested whether schizophrenia patients are impaired relative to controls in sustaining attention, switching attention, or both. Fifteen patients with recent-onset schizophrenia and fifteen healthy volunteers, matched on age and intelligence, performed sustained attention and attention switching tasks, while performance and brain potential measures of selective attention were recorded. In the sustained attention task, patients did not differ from the controls on these measures. In the attention switching task, however, patients showed worse performance than the controls, and early selective attention related brain potentials were absent in the patients while clearly present in the controls. These findings support the hypothesis that schizophrenia is associated with an impairment of the mechanisms that control the direction of attention (attention switching), while the mechanisms that implement a direction of attention (sustained attention) are intact.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3796474?pdf=render |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Henderikus G O M Smid Sander Martens Marc R de Witte Richard Bruggeman |
spellingShingle |
Henderikus G O M Smid Sander Martens Marc R de Witte Richard Bruggeman Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia. PLoS ONE |
author_facet |
Henderikus G O M Smid Sander Martens Marc R de Witte Richard Bruggeman |
author_sort |
Henderikus G O M Smid |
title |
Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia. |
title_short |
Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia. |
title_full |
Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia. |
title_fullStr |
Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia. |
title_sort |
inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
series |
PLoS ONE |
issn |
1932-6203 |
publishDate |
2013-01-01 |
description |
Impairment of sustained attention is assumed to be a core cognitive abnormality in schizophrenia. However, this seems inconsistent with a recent hypothesis that in schizophrenia the implementation of selection (i.e., sustained attention) is intact but the control of selection (i.e., switching the focus of attention) is impaired. Mounting evidence supports this hypothesis, indicating that switching of attention is a bigger problem in schizophrenia than maintaining the focus of attention. To shed more light on this hypothesis, we tested whether schizophrenia patients are impaired relative to controls in sustaining attention, switching attention, or both. Fifteen patients with recent-onset schizophrenia and fifteen healthy volunteers, matched on age and intelligence, performed sustained attention and attention switching tasks, while performance and brain potential measures of selective attention were recorded. In the sustained attention task, patients did not differ from the controls on these measures. In the attention switching task, however, patients showed worse performance than the controls, and early selective attention related brain potentials were absent in the patients while clearly present in the controls. These findings support the hypothesis that schizophrenia is associated with an impairment of the mechanisms that control the direction of attention (attention switching), while the mechanisms that implement a direction of attention (sustained attention) are intact. |
url |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3796474?pdf=render |
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