Communication disturbances, working memory, and emotion in people with elevated disorganized schizotypy

Abstract 

This study examined whether people with elevated disorganized schizotypy would differ from control participants on characteristics associated with disorganization symptoms in schizophrenia and also whether disorganized schizotypy was associated with problems processing emotion. People with disorganized schizotypy (n=32) exhibited greater communication disturbances (CD) than control participants (n=34) for emotionally negative topics but not for positive topics. In addition, the disorganized group exhibited poorer performance on a working memory task but not on a psychometrically matched verbal intelligence task. In addition, poor working memory was associated with increased CD for negative topics and, after controlling for group differences in working memory, group differences in CD were not significant. Moreover, the disorganized group exhibited greater emotional ambivalence and ambivalence was associated with increased CD in the disorganized group. These results suggest that people with disorganized schizotypy exhibit some similar characteristics to people with schizophrenia who have disorganization symptoms and that disorganized schizotypy is also associated with poor emotion processing.

Keywords: Schizotypy, Disorganization, Formal thought disorder, Cognitive slippage, Working memory, Emotion