Abstract
Cognitive disorders are considered as a core symptom of schizophrenia. Importantly, episodic autobiographical memory deficits are strongly related to patients’ social dysfunction. Although the cognitive mechanisms underlying autobiographical memory deficit are highly important to open the door for specific cognitive remediation, they are yet to be understood. The present study focused on event segmentation to check to which extent possible impairments in temporal ordering and segmenting in patients hinder memories construction. Twenty-seven patients with schizophrenia and 27 matched controls took part in an outdoor circuit while wearing a wearable camera. A week later, their memory and the temporal organization of this event have been assessed. Results showed that patients, compared with control participants, reported a reduced amount of details, especially less actions with interaction related to the event. Contrary to our initial hypotheses, event segmentation abilities in patients were not affected. The relationship between event segmentation and memory is discussed.
Highlights
Cognitive disorders, comprising processing speed, episodic memory, working memory, and executive functioning, are considered as a core symptom of schizophrenia [1], as they play an important role in the etiology, course, and outcome of the illness [2, 3]
The Event Segmentation Task A two-way analysis of variance showed a significant effect of the category of boundaries, F(1,52) = 11.13; p = 0.002, with the number of perceptual boundaries being higher than the Neuropsychological Assessment Patients and controls did not differ in terms of IQ
The originality and strength of the present study are the ecological nature of this new protocol that contrasts with both the standard episodic memory tests and the usual autobiographical memory tasks
Summary
Cognitive disorders, comprising processing speed, episodic memory, working memory, and executive functioning, are considered as a core symptom of schizophrenia [1], as they play an important role in the etiology, course, and outcome of the illness [2, 3]. These cognitive deficits are linked to poorer functioning and quality of life [2, 4]. Understanding patients’ episodic memory deficits in daily life may help to better grasp factors responsible for their social dysfunction. Episodic autobiographical memory sustains a sense of self-continuity across time [7], and those memory alterations might be one of the mechanisms accounting for patients’ self disorders [8, 9]
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