ObjectivesSchizophrenia is often defined as a pathology of consciousness, associated with a lack of self-awareness. An interesting way of gaining a better understanding of schizophrenia patients’ cognitive behavior is to focus on metamemory, i.e. people's awareness of their own memory capacity and their control of related behavior. Two processes are involved in metamemory, monitoring and control. Monitoring denotes participants’ subjective assessment of their own cognitive processes and knowledge. At the time of encoding, it is expressed as metamemory judgments, such as the Judgment of Learning (JOL). Control denotes the processes regulating participants’ behavior and cognitive processes, including, for this study, allocation of study time. Some schizophrenia studies have reported how some monitoring abilities are impaired and others preserved, but, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first pilot study, which set out to explore metamemory in older schizophrenia patients, in particular during encoding. PatientsTwo groups of participants were recruited, all aged between 50 and 69. The first group consisted of 13 clinically stable schizophrenia outpatients from the Psychiatric Department of Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital. These 13 older patients were compared to 13 healthy controls. Materials and methodsA computerized version of the tasks was used. The items consisted of 20 non-associated word pairs (e.g. broom-brother) and 20 associated word pairs (e.g. watch-hour). The word pairs appeared on the screen one by one (for 5 s), and participants were instructed to study them. After the learning phase, they then had to perform a non-verbal distracting task during a 4-minute retention interval. Then, the first item in each word pair (cue) was displayed by itself without the second (target). Using a 5-point scale (0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%), participants were asked to give their JOL ratings, immediately after which there was a recall phase when each cue was presented and they had to try to recall the target word. They were then asked to re-learn the same 40 word pairs and told that they themselves would have to control how long (max. 20 s) each pair remained on the screen. After this second learning phase, there was a second recall test, identical to the first. ResultsDespite their memory impairment, older schizophrenia patients were able to assess the material accurately. However, they were unable to adapt their learning time as efficiently as controls. ConclusionsThe results show that both groups were able to cope with the difficulty of the material they were asked to learn. We replicated the typical finding for JOL accuracy, namely that older adults predict which items they will be able to remember. First, although patients’ JOL ratings were lower overall than those of the healthy participants, they were equally as able to assign lower JOLs to the non-associated word pairs and higher JOLs to the associated word pairs. The study provided first data about metamemory in older schizophrenia patients. Their JOL monitoring is accurate, but they are unable to control their learning time efficiently. Enhancing older patients’ control capabilities would help to guide them with their learning, thus contributing to memory rehabilitation.
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Nov 1, 2019
Mirela Widder + 2
Open Access