Neural indicators of initial control rather than early maintenance of attention predict impaired visual attention in schizophrenia.

Abstract

Attentional filtering has long been suggested to be a core deficit of schizophrenia. Recent work has emphasized the important distinction between attentional control, which involves the voluntary selection of a particular stimulus for focused processing, and implementation of selection, which involves the mechanisms that actually enhance the stimulus selected via filtering processes. We recorded electroencephalography data from people with schizophrenia (PSZ), their first-degree relatives (REL) and healthy controls (CTRL) during performance of a resistance to attentional capture task that tapped attentional control and implementation of selection measured during a brief period of attentional maintenance. Event-related potentials (ERPs) during attentional control and maintenance of attention revealed diminished neural responding in PSZ. ERPs during attentional control predicted performance on the visual attention task for PSZ, but not for REL and CTRL. Visual attention performance for CTRL was best predicted by ERPs during attentional maintenance. These results support the idea that poor initial voluntary attentional control is more central to attentional dysfunction in schizophrenia than difficulty implementing selection (e.g., maintaining attention). Nevertheless, weak neural modulations indicative of impaired early attentional maintenance in PSZ challenge notions of increased intensity of focus or "hyperfocusing" in the disorder. Improvement of the initial control of attention may be a productive target for cognitive remediation interventions for schizophrenia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).