EXPLICIT MEMORY, REPETITION PRIMING AND COGNITIVE SKILL LEARNING IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Explicit memory and two forms of implicit memory, repetition priming a nd cognitive skill learning, were examined in twenty-four schizophreni c patients and twenty-four normal control subjects previously matched for sex, age, and educational level. Two explicit tasks, free recall a nd frequency monitoring, and two implicit tasks, word completion and t he Tower of Toronto puzzle, a variant of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, we re selected. The performance of schizophrenic patients was impaired in both explicit tasks, whereas repetition priming was intact; in the To wer of Toronto puzzle, a deficit was observed in problem solving, but not in skill learning. This dissociation between explicit and implicit memory is not entirely consistent with the hypothesis of a deficiency in effort-demanding information processing. It could be better accomm odated by a model of a disturbance in the internal representation of c ontext.