Automatic memory maintained in schizophrenia by means of the process-dissociation procedure

Abstract

The nature of memory impairment in schizophrenia has been a matter of debate for a long time. It is normally agreed that both registration and storage are maintained, but that retrieval is impaired. We believe that this impairment could be located in controlled retrieval processes, as we found that when only automatic processes are required, performance is similar to that of control subjects. Furthermore, as regards controlled processes, the group of patients will have the same reaction for certain stimuli (uncommon words) as for normal words, a hypothesis that was not sustained. Finally, the expected relationship between positive and disorganised symptoms, such as possible phenomena of a lack of cognitive inhibition, frontal neuropsychological dysfunctions and decrease in controlled processes, was not sustained either. We use special methods, such as the “process-dissociation procedure” (Jacoby, 1991), that estimates more purely both types of processes, in a word stem completion task.