Compromised Performance and Abnormal Psychophysiology Associated With the Wisconsin Scales of Psychosis Proneness. In: Miller GA, editor. The Behavioral High-Risk Paradigm in Psychopathology. New York: Springer; 1995. pp. 47-87. [DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4612-4234-5_2]

Time-on-task effect in trait anhedonia

The capacity to sustain attention was explored in a sample of anhedonic subjects according to the Chapman physical anhedonia scale. Sustained attention was determined by studying task-induced changes over the duration of the Eriksen response competition task [Percept. Psychophys. 16 (1974) 143]. Anhedonic subjects had longer reaction times (RTs), but missed no more targets than control subjects. Anhedonic subject RTs got longer with time-on-task (TOT) and displayed greater intra-subject variability. These results confirm those of a previous study indicating that anhedonic subjects may have developed a more conservative response strategy [Psychophysiology 37 (2000) 711] and suggest that this strategy may result in a more rapid decrease in energetical resources. Moreover, the greater intra-subject variability demonstrates the importance of assessing performance over time and its relationship to the variability of responses in the cognitive performance of anhedonic subjects.

Neural mechanisms of affective interference in schizotypy

Negatively valenced stimuli foster cognitive impairment in schizotypy and schizophrenia. To identify relevant brain mechanisms, the authors had 16 positive-schizotypy and 16 control participants perform an emotional Stroop task, judging the ink color of negative and neutral words during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of regional brain activity. Schizotypy individuals showed increased right and decreased left activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, indicating a deficit in maintenance of attentional set in the presence of negative emotional distractors. They also showed abnormal activity in ventral limbic areas, including decreased activity in nucleus accumbens and increased activity in hippocampus and amygdala, a circuit involved in the integration of cognitive and affective processes. These results indicate that aspects of emotion-cognition processes and the brain mechanisms that implement them are similar in schizotypy and schizophrenia.

Aberrant semantic and affective processing in people at risk for psychosis

Semantic and affective processing were examined in people at risk for psychosis. The participants were 3 groups of college students: 41 people with elevated Perceptual Aberration and Magical Ideation (PerMag) scores, 18 people with elevated Social Anhedonia (SocAnh) scores, and 100 control participants. Participants completed a single-word, continuous presentation pronunciation task that included semantically related words, affectively valenced words, and semantically unrelated and affectively neutral words. PerMag participants exhibited increased semantic priming and increased sensitivity to affectively valenced primes. SocAnh participants had increased sensitivity to affectively valenced targets.

Peculiarity and reported childhood maltreatment

This study examined whether reported childhood maltreatment is associated with elevated levels of peculiar perceptions and beliefs. Participants were an unselected sample of 458 college students. Peculiarity was measured using the Perceptual Aberration and Magical Ideation scales. Childhood maltreatment was measured using the Physical Punishment scale from the Assessing Environments III, the Sexual Abuse Scale, and the Childhood Experiences Questionnaire. Higher levels of peculiarity were associated with reported childhood maltreatment among both males and females. These associations could not be accounted for by shared variance with negative affect or by scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Individuals who reported a history of childhood maltreatment were 10.5 times more likely than individuals who did not report such a history to have deviantly high Perceptual Aberration scores. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that childhood maltreatment can contribute to elevated levels of peculiarity, and they raise the possibility that at least some of the unusual perceptions and beliefs exhibited by individuals with psychiatric disorders such as personality disorders and major depressive disorder can be traced, at least in part, to a history of childhood maltreatment.

How we think about cognition, emotion, and biology in psychopathology

The variety of potential relationships assumed between psychological and biological concepts fosters considerable misunderstanding of what our data can tell us. A naively reductionistic view of psychological concepts is prevalent, particularly in the psychopathology literature. A series of examples of the application of psychophysiological methods in studies of cognition, emotion, and psychopathology provides a background for a discussion of these problems. Unwarranted distinctions between cognition and emotion, between classes of measures, and between psychological and biological approaches to understanding normal functioning and psychopathology undermine the ability of cognitive neuroscience to achieve its considerable potential. A nondualistic, nonreductionistic, non-interactive relationship is recommended, with psychological and biological concepts both having central, necessary, and distinct roles.