Reward processing in schizophrenia: a deficit in the representation of value.

Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate deficits in motivation and learning that suggest impairment in different aspects of the reward system. In this article, we present the results of 8 converging experiments that address subjective reward experience, the impact of rewards on decision making, and the role of rewards in guiding both rapid and long-term learning. All experiments compared the performance of stably treated outpatients with schizophrenia and demographically matched healthy volunteers.

The Wisconsin Card Sorting impairment in schizophrenia is evident in the first four trials.

Background: Schizophrenia (SZ) patients' low scores on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) are often attributed to frequent perseverative errors, a pattern typically interpreted as a failure to shift from previously rewarded behavior in response to negative feedback. In this study we tested the hypothesis that SZ patients, due to dysregulated error-processing mechanisms, are more fundamentally impaired in their on-line, trial-to-trial use of feedback to guide behavior.

Methods: Analysis of archival WCST data from 145 adults with schizophrenia and 80 healthy comparison subjects.

Listening to spoken text: adult age differences as revealed by self-paced listening.

An experiment is reported in which young and older adults heard spoken narratives presented in a segment-by-segment fashion using the auditory moving window (AMW) technique. Participants were instructed to initiate the presentation of each segment at their own pace, their goal being to insure good comprehension of the main ideas of the narratives. The pattern of pause times across passages was compared for passages being heard for the first time (novel condition) or after the participants had heard the passages several times before (familiar condition).

Optimistic bias in the perception of personal risk: patterns in schizophrenia.

Objective: Biases in the perception of personal vulnerability to risk could influence how individuals make decisions in many contexts. Schizophrenia patients, because of neurocognitive deficits and psychiatric symptoms, are often seen as compromised in their ability to appreciate risk information and in their decision-making capacity. The authors investigated whether schizophrenia patients share the same optimistic biases frequently demonstrated by non-ill adults in their perceptions of personal risk.