Effects of stimulus structure and target-distracter similarity on the development of visual memory representations in schizophrenia.

Introduction: In a previous study (Silverstein, Bakshi, Chapman, & Nowlis, 1998a, Cognitive Neuropsychiatry) we demonstrated that while schizophrenia patients showed similar learning curves as nonpatient controls when determining whether a configural pattern of elements has been seen before or not, they did not demonstrate any learning curve with nonconfigural stimuli (in contrast to controls). Methodological limitations of that study, however, precluded generalisability of those effects.

Methods: In the present study, therefore, different groups of schizophrenia patients (n = 18) and controls (n = 22) were administered a modified version of the familiarity judgement task used in Silverstein et al. (1998a). In the new version of the task: (1) the patterns that repeated were different for each participant; and (2) half of the nonrepeating patterns were configural and half were nonconfigural.

Results: These indicated stronger perceptual learning effects for the configural compared to the nonconfigural patterns, and overall better performance and more pronounced learning effects for the control group.

Conclusions: The data provide further evidence for a schizophrenia-related impairment in perceptual organisation and in the ability to develop memory representations for novel stimuli.