Pathological Imitative Behavior and Response Preparation in Schizophrenia.

Introduction: Pathological imitative behavior (ehopraxia) is occasionally observed in schizophrenia patients. However, only a severe form of echopraxia can be detected with the help of a direct observation. Therefore, our goal was to study a latent form of pathological imitative behavior in this disorder, which is indicated by an increase of imitative tendencies.

Response preparation and intra-individual reaction time variability in schizophrenia.

It is important to prepare response in advance to increase the efficiency of its execution. The process of response preparation is usually studied using the precueing paradigm. In this paradigm subjects have to employ the preceding information about further imperative stimulus to perform proper response preparation, which shortens the reaction time of subsequent response execution.

Intra-individual reaction time variability and response preparation: an EEG study.

To behave more efficiently the human brain must anticipate future events with different probabilities and prepare appropriate responses. Previous studies demonstrated that participants react faster to more probable stimuli. It has been shown that this effect in reaction time reduction is related to the response preparation process.