12.4.2 Cognitive Explanations

• What is schizophrenia characterized by in terms of symptoms?

  Hallucinations, delusions, etc.
• Cognitive explanations for schizophrenia focus on dysfunctional cognitive processes such as attention, perception, and memory.
• Individuals with schizophrenia often have difficulty focusing and filtering irrelevant information due to attention deficits.
• What do perceptual distortions in schizophrenia result from?

  Faulty sensory processing
• Memory impairments in schizophrenia involve difficulties encoding, storing, and retrieving memories.
• What is the main challenge in reality testing for individuals with schizophrenia?

  Distinguishing real from unreal
• Match the cognitive process with its dysfunction in schizophrenia and related symptoms:

  1️⃣ Attention: Difficulty focusing, distracted, disorganized thinking

  2️⃣ Perception: Distorted sensory processing, hallucinations

  3️⃣ Memory: Impaired encoding and retrieval, difficulty learning

  4️⃣ Reality Testing: Confusion between real and unreal, delusions
• Attention deficits in schizophrenia include difficulties with both selective and divided attention.
• What is sensory overload in schizophrenia caused by?

  Irrelevant stimuli
• Divided attention deficits in schizophrenia make it challenging to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Research by Braff et al. (1991) supports the existence of attention deficits in schizophrenia.
• What do information processing biases in schizophrenia contribute to?

  Delusions and hallucinations
• Match the type of information processing bias with its effect on symptoms:

  Attentional biases ↔️ Hyper-focus on specific details, disorganized thinking

  Interpretational biases ↔️ Negative interpretations of ambiguous situations, delusions

  Memory biases ↔️ Distorted recall of threatening events, reinforcement of delusions
• Which researcher highlighted the role of impaired sensory information processing in delusional thinking?

  Hemsley (2005)
• Cognitive impairments in memory and learning significantly affect individuals with schizophrenia.
• Declarative memory deficits in schizophrenia involve difficulty forming new memories and retrieving old ones.
• What is reduced capacity and processing speed associated with in working memory for individuals with schizophrenia?

  Difficulty following instructions
• Procedural memory is relatively preserved in individuals with schizophrenia but may be indirectly affected by other cognitive deficits.
• Which researchers demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia perform worse on declarative memory tasks compared to healthy controls?

  Aleman et al. (1999)
• Cognitive explanations for schizophrenia suggest that deficits in cognitive functions contribute to the onset and maintenance of symptoms.
• Perceptual distortions in schizophrenia can lead to hallucinations due to faulty sensory processing.
• Match the cognitive abnormality with its effect in schizophrenia:

  Attention deficits ↔️ Difficulty focusing, disorganized thinking

  Perceptual distortions ↔️ Faulty sensory processing, hallucinations

  Memory impairments ↔️ Inability to encode and retrieve memories

  Problems with reality testing ↔️ Confusion between real and unreal, delusions
• Which cognitive process do individuals with schizophrenia perform worse on compared to healthy controls?

  Declarative memory
• Schizophrenia is characterized by symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, and a flat affect
• Cognitive explanations for schizophrenia suggest that deficits in cognitive processes contribute to the onset and maintenance of symptoms.
• Match the cognitive abnormality with its description:

  Deficits in attention ↔️ Difficulty focusing on relevant information

  Perceptual distortions ↔️ Faulty sensory processing

  Memory impairments ↔️ Inability to encode, store, and retrieve memories

  Problems with reality testing ↔️ Challenges in differentiating real from unreal experiences
• What might an individual with schizophrenia experience due to deficits in attention?

  Sensory overload
• Attention deficits in schizophrenia include difficulties with selective attention and divided attention
• Research by Braff et al. (1991) showed that individuals with schizophrenia struggle to maintain focus when presented with multiple stimuli.
• Match the information processing bias with its description:

  Attentional biases ↔️ Difficulty filtering irrelevant stimuli

  Interpretational biases ↔️ Tendency to attribute negative meanings to ambiguous situations

  Memory biases ↔️ Distorted or selective recall of memories
• Which researcher highlighted that impaired sensory processing leads to misinterpretation of events in schizophrenia?

  Hemsley
• Individuals with schizophrenia often have difficulty forming new memories and retrieving old ones, which is a deficit in declarative memory
• Heinrichs and Zakzanis (1998) found that working memory deficits in schizophrenia correlate with the severity of psychotic symptoms.
• What is a limitation of cognitive explanations for schizophrenia in terms of causation?

  Limited in explaining causation
• Cognitive explanations for schizophrenia ignore biological factors like genetics and neurotransmitter imbalances.