Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-29T02:16:50.926Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An investigation of semantic space in patients with schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2009

Mark S. Aloia ,
Monica L. Gourovitch ,
Daniel R. Weinberger  and
Terry E. Goldberg
Mark S. Aloia
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neuroscicnce Center at St. Elizabeths, Washington, DC 20032
Monica L. Gourovitch
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neuroscicnce Center at St. Elizabeths, Washington, DC 20032
Daniel R. Weinberger
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neuroscicnce Center at St. Elizabeths, Washington, DC 20032
Terry E. Goldberg
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neuroscicnce Center at St. Elizabeths, Washington, DC 20032
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There has been increasing interest in the semantic cognitive system in schizophrenia. Recent findings suggest a possible breakdown of semantic information processing in this disorder. The current study attempts to further examine semantic organization in schizophrenia. Twenty-eight chronic, early-onset schizophrenic patients and 32 controls were matched for prcmorbid intelligence and compared in their ability to spontaneously cluster exemplars from a specific category during a fluency task. Using multidimensional scaling and clustering techniques, 11 exemplars occurring most frequently in both groups were chosen for examination of their relative “proximity” during word generation. Patients with schizophrenia showed a less stable two-dimensional organization of exemplars and were less likely to group exemplars into subordinate clusters than were normals. These results suggest that semantic networks arc disorganized in these patients. These findings may have some implications for the debate over the origin of “thought disorder” in schizophrenia. (JINS, 1996, 2, 267–273.)

Keywords

NeuropsychologySchizophreniaLanguageSemanties
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , July 1996 , pp. 267 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barr, W.B., Bilder, R.M., Goldberg, E., Kaplan, E., & Mukherjee, S. (1989). The neuropsychology of schizophrenic speech. Journal of Communicative Disorders, 22, 327–349.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bayles, K.A., & Kaszniak, A.W. (1987). Communication and cognition in normal aging and dementia. Boston: College Hill Press.Google Scholar
Bleuler, E. (1911, English translation, 1950). Dementia praecox or the group of schizophrenias. New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Butters, N., Granholm, E., Salmon, D.P., & Grant, I. (1987). Episodic and semantic memory: A comparison of amnesic and demented patients. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 9, 479–497.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chaika, E. (1974). A linguistic looks at “schizophrenic” language. Brain and Language, 1, 257–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, A.S., Butters, N., Paulsen, J.S., Salmon, D.P., Swenson, M.R., & Maloney, L.T. (1993). Anassessment of the semantic network in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 5, 254–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapin, K., Vann, L.E., Lycaki, H., Josef, N., & Meyendorff, E. (1989). Investigationof the associative network in schizophrenia using the semantic priming paradigm. Schizophrenia Research, 2, 355–360.Google Scholar
Clare, L., McKenna, P.J., Mortimer, A.H., & Baddeley, A.D. (1993). Memoryin schizophrenia: What is impaired and what is preserved? Neuropsychologia, 31, 1225–1241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cormier, P., Margison, J.A., & Fisk, J.D. (1991). Contributionof perceptual and lexical-semantic errors to the naming impairments in Alzheimer's disease. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 73, 175–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corter, J.E. (1982). Addtree/P: A Pascal program for fitting additive tree based on Sattath and Tversky's ADDTREE algorithm. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation, 14, 353–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crosson, B. & Hughes, C.W.(1987). Roleof the thalamus in language: Is it related to schizophrenic thought disorder? Schizophrenia Bulletin, 13, 605–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutting, J. & Murphy, D. (1988). Schizophrenicthought disorder: A psychological and organic interpretation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 310–319.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dalby, J.T. & Williams, R. (1986). Preservedreading and spelling ability in psychotic disorders. Psychological Medicine, 16, 171–175.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, A.V., Paulsen, J.S., Heaton, R.K., & Jeste, D.V. (1995). Anassessment of the semantic space network in chronic schizophrenics. Journal of the International Ncuropsychological Society, 1, 132.Google Scholar
Demonet, J.F., Chollet, F., Ramsey, S., Cardebat, D., Nespoulous, J.L., Wise, R., Rascol, A., & Frackowiak, R. (1992). Theanatomy of phonological and semantic processing in normal subjects. Brain, 115, 1753–1768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frith, C.D. (1992). The cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Gold, J.M., Randolph, C., Carpenter, C.J., Goldberg, T.E., & Weinberger, D.R. (1992). Formsof memory failure in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 101, 487–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottschalk, L.A., Goldine, C.G., Magliocco, E.B., & D’zmura, T.L. (1961). Furtherstudies on the speech patterns of schizophrenic patients. Journal of Nervous andMental Disease, 132, 101–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gourovitch, M.L., Goldberg, T.E., & Weinberger, D.R. (1994). Differential verbal fluency deficits in patients with schizophrenia. Neuropsychology (in press).Google Scholar
Harrow, M. & Quinlan, D.(1985). Disordered thinking and schizophrenic psychopathology. New York: Gardner Press.Google Scholar
Hart, S., Smith, C.M., & Swash, M. (1988). Wordfluency in patients with early dementia of Alzheimer type. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 27, 115–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, P.D., Earle-Boyer, E.A., Wieglus, M.S., & Levinson, J.C. (1986). Encoding, memory, and thought disorder in schizophrenia and mania. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 12, 252–261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harvey, S.A., Nelson, E., Hallen, J.W., & Early, T.S. (1993). Categorizedattentional abnormality in schizophrenia is correlated with severity of symptoms. Biological Psychiatry, 33, 93–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henderson, V.W., Mack, W., Freed, D.M., Kempler, D., & Anderson, E.S. (1990). Namingconsistency in Alzheimer's disease. Brain and Language, 39, 530–538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hier, D.B., Hagenlocker, K., & Shindler, A.G. (1985). Languagedisintegration in dementia: Effects of etiology and severity. Brain and Language, 25, 117–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holzman, M., Shenton, M.E., & Solovay, M.R. (1986). Qualityof thought disorder in differential diagnosis. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 12, 360–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, R.D., Szechtman, H., Franco, S., Szechtman, B., Nahmias, C., Garnett, E.S., List, S., & Cleghorn, J.M. (1993). Threeclinical syndromes of schizophrenia in untreated subjects: Relation to brain activity measured by positron emission tomography (PET). Schizophrenia Research, 11, 47–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwapil, T.R., Hegley, D.C., Chapman, L.J., & Chapman, J.P. (1990). Facilitationof word recognition by semantic priming in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 215–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landre, N.A., Taylor, M.A., & Kearns, K.P. (1992). Languagefunctioning in schizophrenic and aphasic patients. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology, 5, 7–14.Google Scholar
MacCallum, R. (1988). Multidimensional scaling. In Nesselroade, J.R. & Cattell, R.B. (Eds.), Handbook of multivariate experimental psychology (2nded.) (pp. 421–445). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCallum, R. (1994). Personalcommunication.Google Scholar
Maher, B. (1972). Thelanguage of schizophrenia: A review and interpretation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 120, 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manschreck, T.C., Maher, B.A., Milavetz, J.J., Ames, D., Weisstein, C.C., & Schneyer, M.L. (1988). Semanticpriming in thought disordered schizophrenic patients. Schizophrenia Research, 1, 61–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margolin, D.I., Pate, D.S., Friedrich, F.J., & Elia, E. (1990). Dysnomiain dementia and stroke patients: Different underlying cognitive deficits. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 12, 597–612.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKenna, P.J. (1991). Memory, knowledge, and delusions. British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (suppl. 14), 36–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mickanin, J., Grossman, M., Onishi, K., Auriacombe, S., & Clark, C. (1994). Verbaland nonverbal fluency in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychology, 8, 385–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morice, R. (1986). Beyondlanguage-speculation on the prefrontal cortex and schizophrenia. Australian and New Zeal and Journal of Psychiatry, 20, 7–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morice, R. & McNicol, D.(1986). Languagechanges in schizophrenia: A limited replication. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 12, 239–251.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monsch, A.U., Bondi, M.W., Butters, N., Paulsen, J.S., Salmon, D.P., Brugger, P., & Swenson, M.R. (1994). Acomparison of category and letter fluency in Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. Neuropsychology, 8, 25–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nebes, R.D., Brady, B.B., & Huff, F.J. (1989). Automaticand attentional mechanisms of semantic priming in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 11, 219–230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nestor, P.G., Shenton, M.E., McCarley, R.W., Haimson, J., Smith, S., O’Donnell, B., Kimble, M., Kikinis, R., & Jolesz, F.A. (1993). Neuropsychologicalcorrelates of MRI temporal lobe abnormalities in schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 1849–1855.Google ScholarPubMed
Patterson, T., Spohn, H.E., Bogia, D.P., & Hayes, K. (1986). Thoughtdisorder in schizophrenia: Cognitive and neuroscience approaches. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 12, 460–472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rochester, S.R., Martin, J.R., & Thurstone, S. (1977). Thoughtprocessdisorder in schizophrenia: The listener's task. Brain and Language, 4, 95–114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sattath, S. & Tversky, A. (1977). Additivesimilarity trees. Psychometrica, 42, 319–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiffman, S.S., Reynolds, M.L., & Young, F.W. (1981). Introduction to multidimensional scaling. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Shepard, R.N. (1980). Multidimensionalscaling, tree-fitting, and clustering. Science, 210, 390–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitzer, M., Braun, U., Hermle, L., & Maier, S. (1993). Associativesemantic network dysfunction in thought-disordered schizophrenic patients: Direct evidence from indirect semantic priming. Biological Psychiatry, 34, 864–877.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitzer, M., Weisker, I., Winter, M., Maier, S., Hermle, L., & Maher, B. (1994). Semanticand phonological priming in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 485–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamlyn, D., McKenna, P.J., Mortimer, A.M., Lund, C.E., Hammond, S., & Baddeley, A.D. (1992). Memoryimpairment in schizophrenia: Its extent, affiliations, and neuropsychological character. Psychological Medicine, 22, 101–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberger, D.R., Berman, K.F., & Illowsky, B.P. (1988). Physiologicdysfunction of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 609–615.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weinberger, D.R., Berman, K.F., & Zec, R.F. (1986). Physiologicdysfunction of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia:I. Regional cerebral blood flow evidence. Archives of General Psychiatry, 43, 114–124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynne, L.C. & Singer, M. (1963). Thoughtdisorder and family relations ofschizophrenics. I: A research strategy. Archives of General Psychiatry, 9, 191–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zurif, E.B., Caramazza, A., Myerson, R., & Galvin, J. (1974). Semanticfeature representations for normal and aphasic language. Brain and Language, 1, 167–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar