Impaired verbal memory is associated with impaired motor performance in schizophrenia: relationship to brain structure

Deficient ability to take advantage of predictable elements in the performa nce of cognitive tasks has been proposed as an underlying factor for a numb er of deviances in schizophrenia. In a schizophrenic sample (n=39), we prop ose and test the view that certain memory and motor anomalies arise because of a compromise in the capacity to take advantage of the redundant (predic table) features of cognitive tasks. Results demonstrate a relationship betw een reduced capacity to take advantage of predictable features of two diffe rent cognitive processing tasks, one verbal memory, and the other motor. Po orer verbal recall on high-redundancy word lists was associated with a redu ced ability to produce synchronous finger tapping in response to a high red undancy auditory stimulus, and inversely correlated with formal thought dis order ratings. These relationships, we suggest, reflect a specific and comm on schizophrenic deficit in the use of redundancies, not attributable to a generalized deficiency in performance. Structural imaging evidence from a s ubsample of these subjects (n=16) implicates frontal areas as the locus of this cognitive impairment. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserv ed.