POSITIVE-NEGATIVE SYMPTOMATOLOGY AND EXPERIMENTAL MEASURES OF ATTENTION IN SCHIZOPHRENIC-PATIENTS

In a search for an external validation of the negative syndrome constr uct and the attentional impairment 'tem on Andreasen's scale, 49 unmed icated schizophrenic patients were administered the Span of Apprehensi on Test and a Continuous Performance Test with two levels of difficult y. This schizophrenic sample performed significantly more poorly on th e attentional tests than a comparable group of 27 healthy control subj ects. Depending on the difficulty of the test we found a number of sig nificant correlations between the SANS composite score and the pertain ing attentional impairment item on the one hand and experimental indic es of attentional functioning on the other hand, which might corrobora te the psychopathological assumptions. The implications of these resul ts for further attempts to validate clinical concepts of the positive/ negative dichotomy by experimental means will be discussed.