Normal Auditory Negative Priming in Schizophrenic Patients
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2006, 59 (7), 1224–1236 Normal auditory negative priming in schizophrenic patients Anouk Zabal and Axel Buchner Heinrich-Heine-Universita¨t, Du¨sseldorf, Germany Performance of 28 schizophrenic patients and 28 matched controls was compared in an auditory priming task. A large auditory negative priming effect was obtained for the patients as well as for the control group, and the size of the negative priming effect was approximately the same for both groups. Under the same conditions, positive or repetition priming for the patients was enhanced compared to that of the control group. The present findings from an auditory priming task are con- sistent with a growing body of evidence from the visual domain showing normal rather than reduced or eliminated negative priming in schizophrenic patients. The negative priming phenomenon manifests 1977), negative priming reflects the operation of itself in slowed-down or more error-prone an inhibitory attentional selection mechanism reactions to recently ignored stimuli compared to that prevents access of recently ignored objects to those for control stimuli that are unrelated to the overt responses by suppressing competing distrac- previous stimuli (for reviews, see Fox, 1995; tor input. This inhibitory mechanism enables May, Kane, & Hasher, 1995; Neill, Valdes, & more efficient responding to the current target Terry, 1995; Tipper, 2001). Several models are under normal circumstances, but causes a delay currently available to explain the negative in responding when, as in a negative priming labo- priming phenomenon. Of these models, the so- ratory task, the previously ignored (and, hence, called distractor inhibition model has a special supposedly suppressed) distractor becomes the status not only because it is historically the oldest new target. model that explains this phenomenon but also This attentional explanation of the negative because it suggests that the negative priming priming phenomenon is interesting for schizo- paradigm may be an appropriate task for testing phrenia research because attentional impairment predictions of loss-of-inhibition theories of the is one of the fundamental cognitive deficits associ- changes in cognitive functioning induced by ated with schizophrenia. In particular, increased schizophrenia, ageing, and other conditions. distractibility in the presence of irrelevant infor- According to the version of this model proposed mation has been widely attributed to disrupted by Tipper (1985; see also Dalrymple-Alford & mechanisms responsible for the direction and Budayr, 1966; Houghton & Tipper, 1994; Neill, control of attention—that is, to the impaired Correspondence should be addressed to Axel Buchner, Institut fu¨r Experimentelle Psychologie, Heinrich-Heine-University, D-40225 Du¨sseldorf, Germany. Email: [email protected] The research reported in this article was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bu 945/2–1). 1224 # 2006 The Experimental Psychology Society http://www.psypress.com/qjep DOI:10.1080/02724980543000114 AUDITORY NEGATIVE PRIMING functioning of inhibitory attentional mechanisms priming, but only in subgroups of schizophrenic (e.g., Frith, 1979; McGhie, 1977; McGhie & patients. For instance, normal negative priming Chapman, 1961). With respect to the negative has been reported for chronic outpatients but not priming paradigm, the assumption of impaired for acutely psychotic schizophrenic inpatients inhibitory attentional mechanisms in schizo- (S. Park, Lenzenweger, Pu¨schel, & Holzman, phrenia predicts less or no slow-down of the 1996; S. Park, Pu¨schel, Sauter, Rentsch, & Hell, reactions of schizophrenic patients to previously 2002; see also Salo, Henik, Nordahl, & Robertson, ignored distractors compared to those of normal 2002), and for medicated but not for unmedicated controls, provided that the distractor inhibition schizophrenic patients (Salo, Robertson, & model is valid. The negative priming task itself Nordahl, 1996; Salo, Robertson, Nordahl, & appears particularly useful for testing the loss-of- Kraft, 1997), as well as conversely for unmedicated inhibition assumption in schizophrenia because a but not for medicated schizophrenic patients cognitive deficit is expressed in improved perform- (David, 1995). In contrast, Moritz et al. (2001) ance (no reaction slow-down), rather than impo- reported that symptomatology and neuroleptic verished performance, which is usually explained medication did not moderate the size of the nega- by a generalized cognitive deficit rather than a tive priming effect. Interestingly, they noted that specific inhibitory attentional impairment. procedural details may determine whether or not Indeed, Beech, Powell, McWilliam, and negative priming is observed in schizophrenic Claridge (1989) started off such a research pro- patients. In their study, control participants and gramme and reported reduced negative priming schizophrenic patients did not differ in terms of in a group of schizophrenic patients compared to negative priming when the prime presentation dur- that in a control group. This finding was inter- ation was 250 ms, but schizophrenic patients failed preted as being consistent with the assumption to show any priming when primes were presented that schizophrenia implies a reduction in the ability for 100 ms and were followed by a pattern mask, of the cognitive system to inhibit and suppress as in Beech et al. (1989). Moritz et al. argued that irrelevant information. previous findings of no or reduced negative However, subsequent research has produced priming in schizophrenic patients may have been different and somewhat inconsistent results. For due to a procedural artifact—that is, the very instance, Laplante, Everett, and Thomas (1992) short presentation durations combined with did not find reduced negative priming in schizo- pattern masking, which simply may have impaired phrenic patients relative to depressive patients the patients’ processing of the prime distractor. and healthy control participants.1 Parallel results Finally, Hoenig, Hochrein, Mu¨ller, and have recently been reported in several studies Wagner (2002) reported normal levels of identity (Baving, Wagner, Cohen, & Rockstroh, 2001; negative priming in schizophrenic patients in a Moritz, Jacobsen, Mersmann, Kloss, & Andresen, task that required selection by stimulus identity, 2000; Roesch-Ely, Spitzer, & Weisbrod, 2003; but the patients showed reduced spatial negative Wagner, Loeper, Cohen, & Rockstroh, in press). priming when spatial position was incidental and Other researchers also found preserved negative not task relevant. However, MacQueen, Galway, 1 The reported negative priming effects were descriptively large for schizophrenic patients classified as negative (255 ms, N ¼ 10) or positive (100 ms, N ¼ 8), for depressive patients (228 ms, N ¼ 21), and for control participants (69 ms, N ¼ 35). An analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the size of the effect did not differ significantly between groups. However, when the authors tested whether the effect was significant within a particular group, statistically significant results emerged only for the depressive and control participants. The problem with these group-specific tests and the conclusions drawn from them is that the sample size and, hence, the statistical power were so much smaller in the schizophrenic than in the other groups that results favouring the statistical null hypothesis (“no negative priming”) are highly expected on purely methodological grounds and must not be interpreted as indicating no negative priming in the schizophrenic groups. THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2006, 59 (7) 1225 ZABAL AND BUCHNER Goldberg, and Tipper (2003) reported reduced to classify, by an appropriate key press, the spatial negative priming of schizophrenic patients attended tone as originating from an instrument compared to control participants when spatial or an animal. Each trial consisted of a prime pair position was relevant and not incidental. and a probe pair of stimuli. Trials were separated Given this pattern of findings, the main by a pause. purpose of the present research was to add A preliminary version of this task using experi- further evidence to the body of available findings mental parameters that had previously been found on the relation between negative priming and appropriate for use with elderly participants schizophrenia. In particular, we wanted to extend (Buchner & Mayr, 2004) was implemented in a the range of available findings from the visual to pilot study to check its adequacy for a clinical the auditory domain. While this empirical exten- sample with diagnoses of schizophrenia. In this sion into a new sensory modality may be regarded pilot experiment, the participants’ task was to clas- as interesting in its own right, another purpose for sify the attended tones as belonging to either the moving into the auditory modality was to provide “wind instrument” (flute, trumpet, and saxophone) for a potentially more sensitive test of the hypoth- or the “string instrument” (piano, balalaika, and esis of reduced negative priming in schizophrenia. pizzicato violin) category by responding with an Specifically, Banks, Roberts, and Ciranni (1995) appropriate key press. Each trial consisted of a argued that attending to a tone while avoiding prime pair and a probe pair of stimuli, with a cue– auditory distraction must operate almost entirely target interval of 500 ms and an interval