Background. A sentence verification task was developed to investigate semantic memory in schizophrenia.

Methods. The test consisted of three types of sentence (true, unlikely and nonsense) and seven different types of content (neutral, persecutory, grandiose, political, religious, relationships and somatic) representing common delusional themes present in schizophrenic patients. Sixty-three schizophrenic patients and 66 matched control subjects were asked to make true/false judgements to 143 sentences.

Results. Overall accuracy was similar across the two groups; sentences with some emotional themes and sentences of the unlikely type produced the most violations. Significant differences between the two subject groups were found specifically on nonsense sentences with persecutory and religious themes. Patients made significantly more incorrect responses (acceptance) to nonsense sentences that had an emotional content congruent with their delusional beliefs, past or present, and also on unlikely sentences (incorrect rejections) whose content was not congruent with their delusions. Further analysis of response bias in the patients showed, overall, that there were more incorrect rejections (a reflection of the large number of unlikely sentence errors) and more incorrect responses to sentences congruent with patients delusions. Furthermore, analysis of those patients currently experiencing delusions revealed more incorrect responses to sentences congruent with their delusional ideas compared with patients not currently deluded.

Conclusions. These findings are indicative of cognitive bias in schizophrenia towards certain emotional themes that may underlie illogical semantic connections and delusions.