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Verbal Initiation, Suppression, and Strategy Use and the Relationship with Clinical Symptoms in Schizophrenia

Martin, Andrew K., Gibson, Emily C., Mowry, Bryan, Robinson, Gail A. (2016) Verbal Initiation, Suppression, and Strategy Use and the Relationship with Clinical Symptoms in Schizophrenia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 22 (7). pp. 735-743. ISSN 1355-6177. (doi:10.1017/S1355617716000552) (KAR id:79705)

Abstract

Objectives: Individuals with schizophrenia have difficulties on measures of executive functioning such as initiation and suppression of responses and strategy development and implementation. The current study thoroughly examines performance on the Hayling Sentence Completion Test (HSCT) in individuals with schizophrenia, introducing novel analyses based on initiation errors and strategy use, and association with lifetime clinical symptoms. Methods: The HSCT was administered to individuals with schizophrenia (N=77) and age-and sex-matched healthy controls (N=45), along with background cognitive tests. The standard HSCT clinical measures (initiation response time, suppression response time, suppression errors), composite initiation and suppression error scores, and strategy-based responses were calculated. Lifetime clinical symptoms formal thought disorder (FTD), positive, negative were calculated using the Lifetime Dimensions of Psychosis Scale. Results: After controlling for baseline cognitive differences, individuals with schizophrenia were significantly impaired on the suppression response time and suppression error scales. For the novel analyses, individuals with schizophrenia produced a greater number of initiation errors and subtly wrong errors, and produced fewer responses indicative of developing an appropriate strategy. Strategy use was negatively correlated with FTD symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia. Conclusions: The current study provides further evidence for deficits in the initiation and suppression of verbal responses in individuals with schizophrenia. Moreover, an inability to attain a strategy at least partly contributes to increased semantically connected errors when attempting to suppress responses. The association between strategy use and FTD points to the involvement of executive deficits in disorganized speech in schizophrenia.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1017/S1355617716000552
Uncontrolled keywords: adult; executive function; female; human; male; middle aged; pathophysiology; physiology; schizophrenia; verbal behavior, Adult; Executive Function; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Schizophrenia; Verbal Behavior
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
R Medicine
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Andrew Martin
Date Deposited: 04 Feb 2020 15:13 UTC
Last Modified: 06 Mar 2023 12:01 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/79705 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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