COGNITIVE AND PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, AND DISORGANIZED SYMPTOMS IN THE SCHIZOPHRENIA SPECTRUM

This study examined the cross-sectional and prospective relationships between cognitive and psychophysiological variables and positive, nega tive, and disorganized symptoms in 40 outpatients with diagnoses of sc hizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. The results indicated that di sorganized symptoms were related to deficits in auditory and visuomoto r attentional processing, increased skin conductance orienting respons e, and lower stress reactivity. Negative symptoms were related to redu ced resting heart rate, increased stress reactivity, and deficits in v isuomotor processing. Prospective findings indicated that both the cog nitive and heart-rate variables might be trait-related aspects of the negative symptoms, while the skin conductance, but not the cognitive, variables might be trait-related aspects of the disorganized symptoms. Positive symptoms were not related to any of the cognitive or psychop hysiological variables.