AUTONOMIC ORIENTING AND THE ALLOCATION OF PROCESSING RESOURCES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA-PATIENTS AND PUTATIVELY AT-RISK INDIVIDUALS

The differential allocation of attentional resources to attended and i gnored stimuli was examined by measuring skin conductance orienting re sponses and secondary reaction time in relatively asymptomatic schizop hrenia outpatients, demographically matched normal controls, college s tudents putatively at risk for psychosis, and a college student contro l group. At-risk participants were those with extreme scores on scales for either anhedonia or perceptual aberration-magical ideation (per-m ags). Compared to control groups, the patients and per-mags showed sec ondary reaction time results suggesting a delay in the differential al location of attentional resources. This deficit was observed particula rly in patients and matched controls with few or no skin conductance o rienting responses, suggesting that impaired autonomic orienting is re lated to underlying cognitive-attentional vulnerability factors.