Semantic hyperpriming in schizophrenic patients: increased facilitation or impaired inhibition in semantic association processing?

Full Abstract

Previous studies analyzing semantic priming in schizophrenic patients have reported conflicting results. In the present study, we explored semantic priming in a sample of schizophrenic patients with mild thought disorders. We wondered if distinct cognitive processes, such as facilitation and/or inhibition, underlie semantic hyperpriming and are variously impaired in schizophrenic patients. Using a lexical decision task, we evaluated semantic priming in 15 schizophrenic patients (DSM-IV) with mild thought disorders and 15 healthy controls matched for sex, age, and education level. The task was designed to divide semantic priming into two additive components, namely facilitation effect and inhibition effect. One-sample t-tests were performed to investigate differences in semantic priming, facilitation, and inhibition within each group. ANOVAs were performed to compare the effects of semantic priming, facilitation, and inhibition between groups. Patients displayed greater semantic priming than controls (i.e., hyperpriming), but this was not due to increased facilitation in processing semantically related pairs. On the contrary, hyperpriming was the result of prolonged response time to process semantically unrelated pairs, corresponding to a requirement to inhibit unrelated information. We demonstrated semantic hyperpriming in stabilized schizophrenic patients with mild severity of symptoms. Thus, semantic hyperpriming may be an intrinsic feature of schizophrenia that is not related to the clinical state of patients. Semantic hyperpriming was due to an inhibition effect involved in processing semantically unrelated information not to increased facilitatory effect for related pairs.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Lecardeur, Laurent (L); Giffard, Bénédicte (B); Laisney, Mickael (M); Brazo, Perrine (P); Delamillieure, Pascal (P); Eustache, Francis (F); Dollfus, Sonia (S);

Affiliation: UMR 6194, CNRS, CEA, Université de Caen and Université Paris V, France. lecardeur(-atsign-)cyceron.fr

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Schizophrenia research (Schizophr Res), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Jan; vol 89 (issue 1-3) : pp 243-50

Dates: Created 2006/12/18; Completed 2007/04/03;

PMID: 17046203, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Attention
Cognition Disorders - diagnosis; psychology
Cues
Female
Humans
Inhibition (Psychology)

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.