Cognitive deficits in schizophrenic patients

Cognitive deficits, i.e. disturbances of higher mental processes like langu age, memory and attention belong to the core symptoms of schizophrenia. Alt hough cognitive deficits are less salient than psychotic symptoms (e.g., de lusions or hallucinations) they strongly affect every-day functioning. Acco rdingly, effective treatment of cognitive deficits plays an important role for the rehabilitation of schizophrenic patients. In this paper, an overvie w on cognitive deficits in schizophrenic patients is given. We will focus u pon performance in tasks involving working memory (short term storage and p rocessing of information), semantic memory (storage and processing of conce ptual information) and cognitive control (mental coordination of thought an d action). The review demonstrates that investigating cognitive deficits al lows the identification and characterization of subtypes of schizophrenic d isorders. Hence, the analysis of cognitive deficits by means of experimenta l psychological methods can make an important contribution to the psychopat hology of schizophrenia.