THE SENSITIVITY OF THE SPONTANEOUS SELECTIVE ATTENTION TEST (SSAT) - A STUDY OF SCHIZOPHRENIC INPATIENTS AND OUTPATIENTS VERSUS NORMAL CONTROLS

The Spontaneous Selective Attention Task (SSAT) is a visual word-ident ification task that measures the type of selective attention that occu rs spontaneously when there are multiple stimuli, all potentially rele vant, and insufficient time to process each of them fully. The present study was designed ro examine the sensitivity of the SSAT by comparin g the performance of 40 schizophrenic inpatients and 30 schizophrenic outpatients to that of 70 normal controls. The pattern of results repo rted previously for schizophrenic inpatients versus normals was replic ated, and these findings were extended to include schizophrenic outpat ients in partial symptom remission. Schizophrenic inpatients and outpa tients were just as accurate in identifying words as normals, but spon taneous selective attention under conditions of predictability was abn ormal in both patient groups. Furthermore, the ability of the SSAT to discriminate between schizophrenic patients and controls was confirmed . A ratio measure of spontaneous selective attention had a sensitivity of 77% and a base rate of 9% in a normal population (when a cutoff va lue was set to minimize false positives and false negatives). Thus, th e SSAT is a sensitive measure of an attentional phenotype that may be useful in genetic studies of schizophrenia. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.