Hostname: page-component-6d856f89d9-gndc8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T07:59:44.602Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some cognitive correlates of schizophrenic illnesses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Graham Robertson  and
Pamela J. Taylor
Graham Robertson*
Affiliation:
Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Pamela J. Taylor
Affiliation:
Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
1 Address for correspondence: Dr Graham Robertson, Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A battery of tests was developed to assess verbal, non-verbal and mixed cognitive functions. Interest was based on pattern of response rather than absolute scores. The subjects were 167 men held in prison on criminal charges or in a maximum security hospital after conviction. The present paper deals exclusively with two subgroups: the 61 schizophrenic men and the 41 men with no psychiatric disorder. The schizophrenic group as a whole presented a very different cognitive pattern from the ‘normal’ men. First, with the exception of the vocabulary subtest of the WAIS, the schizophrenics were inferior on all tests, whether verbal, non-verbal or mixed function. Secondly, they showed considerably more variation within subtests. The schizophrenic sample was therefore subdivided into four clinical groups. Each showed a distinctive cognitive profile. It is argued that these cognitive differences reflect real differences in the disorder and type of illness being experienced by members of these subgroups.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 1985 , pp. 81 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreasen, N. C. (1982). The relationship between schizophrenic language and the aphasias. In Schizophrenia as a Brain Disease (ed. Henn, F. A. and Nasrallah, H. A.), pp. 99–111. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Åsberg, M., Montgomery, S. A., Perris, C., Schalling, D. & Sedvall, G. (1978). The Comprehensive Psychopathological Rating Scale. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavia Supplement 27/5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaumont, J. G. S. & Dimond, S. J. (1973). Brain disconnection and schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 123, 661–663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benton, A. L. (1968). Differential behavioral effects in frontal lobe disease. Neuropsychologia 6, 53–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigelow, L. B., Nasrallah, H. A. & Rauscher, F. P. (1983). Corpus callosum thickness in chronic schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 142, 284–287.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bleuler, M. (1978). The Schizophrenic Disorders (transl. Clemens, S. M.). Yale University Press: New Haven.Google Scholar
Butler, S. (1979). Interhemispheric relations in schizophrenia. In Hemisphere Asymmetries of Function in Psychopathology (ed. Gruzelier, J. and Flor-Henry, P.). Elsevier/North Holland Biomedicai Press: Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Carpenter, W. T. & Stephens, J. H. (1979). An attempted integration of information relevant to schizophrenic subtypes. Schizophrenia Bulletin 5, 490–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Claridge, G. S. (1967). Personality and Arousal. A Psychophysiological Study of Psychiatric Disorder. Pergamon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Crow, T. J. (1980). Molecular pathology of schizophrenia: more than one disease process? British Medical Journal 280, 66–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crow, T. J., Cross, A. J., Johnstone, E. C. & Owen, F. (1982).Two syndromes in schizophrenia and their pathogenosis.In Schizophrenia as a Brain Disease (ed. Henn, F. A. and Nasrallah, H. A.), pp. 196–234. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Derogatis, L. R., Lipman, R. S. & Covi, L. (1973). An outpatient psychiatric rating scale. Psychopharmacology Bulletin 9, 13–28.Google ScholarPubMed
Etevenon, P., Pidoux, B., Rioux, P., Peron-Magnan, P., Verdeux, G. & Deniker, P. (1979). Intra and interhemispheric EEG differences qualified by spectral analysis. Comparative study of two groups of schizophrenics and a control group. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 60, 57–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faglioni, P., Scotti, G. & Spinnler, H. (1969). Impaired recognition of written letters following unilateral hemispheric damage. Cortex 5, 120–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flor-Henry, P. (1976). Lateralized temporal-limbic dysfunction and psychopathology. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 280, 777–795.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flor-Henry, P. (1983). The Cerebral Basis of Psychopathology. John Wright: Bristol.Google Scholar
Green, P. (1978). Defective interhemispheric transfer in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 87, 472–480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gunn, J. & Robertson, G. (1976). Drawing a criminal profile. British Journal of Criminology 16, 156–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawk, A. B., Carpenter, W. T. & Strauss, J. S. (1975). Diagnostic criteria and five year outcome in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 32, 343–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heaton, R. K. & Crowley, T. J. (1981). Effect of psychiatric disorders and their somatic treatments on neuropsychological test results. In Handbook of Clinical Neuropsychology (ed. Fitskov, F. B. and Boll, T. J.), pp. 481–525. John Wiley & Sons: New York.Google Scholar
Howard, M. L., Hogan, T. P. & Wright, M. W. (1975). The effects of drugs on psychiatric patient's performance on the Halstead–Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 161, 166–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnstone, E. C., Crow, T. J., Frith, C. D., Stevens, M., Kreel, L. & Husband, J. (1978). The dementia of dementia praecox. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 57, 305–324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kingsley, L. & Struening, E. L. (1966). Changes in intellectual performance of acute and chronic schizophrenics. Psychological Reports 18, 791–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, R. W. (1970). Disorders of thinking. In Symptoms of Psychopathology (ed. Costello, C. G.), pp. 49–94. John Wiley & Sons: New York.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, R. & Bigelow, L. (1972). Quantitative brain measurements in chronic schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 121, 259–264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schonell, F. J. & Schonell, F. E. (1965). Diagnostic and Attainment Testing. Oliver and Boyd: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Silverman, J. (1964). The problem of attention in research and theory in schizophrenia. Psychological Review 71, 352–379.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, P. J. & Gunn, J. (1984). Violence and psychosis: I. Risk of violence among psychotic men. British Medical Journal 288, 1945–1949.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, P. J., Dalton, R. & Fleminger, J. J. (1982). Handedness and schizophrenic symptoms. British Journal of Medical Psychology 136, 287–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terman, L. M. & Merrill, M. (1961). Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. George G. Harrap: London.Google Scholar
Thorndike, E. L. & Lorge, I. (1944). The Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 Words. Columbia University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Tutko, T. A. & Spence, J. T. (1962). The performance of process and reactive schizophrenics and brain injured subjects on a conceptual task. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 65, 387–394.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warrington, E. K. & James, M. (1967). An experimental investigation of facial recognition in patients with unilateral cerebral lesions. Cortex 3, 317–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, C. G., Thomas, R. W., Andersen, D. & Felling, J. (1968). Differentiation of organics from schizophrenics at two chronicity levels by use of the Reitan–Halstead organic test battery. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 32, 679–684.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wechsler, D. (1955). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The Psychological Corporation: New York.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1978). Mental Disorders: Glossary and Guide to Their Classification in Accordance with the Ninth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases. WHO: Geneva.Google Scholar