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Specificity of autobiographical memory in schizophrenia: Retrospective and prospective deficits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

D. Lecompte
Affiliation:
Departement de Psychiatrie, Unite 74, CHU Brugmann, Bruxelles, Belgium
H. Nachtergael
Affiliation:
Departement de Psychiatrie, Unite 74, CHU Brugmann, Bruxelles, Belgium
A. Neumann
Affiliation:
Universite Catholique de Louvain, Unite ECSA, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
S. Blairy
Affiliation:
Departement Des Sciences Cognitives, Universite de Liege, Liege, Belgium
P. Philippot
Affiliation:
Universite Catholique de Louvain, Unite ECSA, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Abstract

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Cognitive deficits are viewed as core symptoms and among the major disabilities of schizophrenia. Among these deficits, memory impairments are likely to play a crucial role, and more specifically, memory for personal episodes, is disproportionately impaired. Schizophrenia is associated with a reduction of specific autobiographical memories which are marked after the onset of the disease (e.g., Riutort et al., 2003). This impairment is consistent with the existence of an abnormal development of personal identity in patients with schizophrenia. Williams and colleagues (1996) suggest that the specificity with which people retrieve episodes from their past determines the specificity with which they imagine the future. The aim of the present study was to investigate this hypothesis in patients with schizophrenia. A French adaptation of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT, Williams & Broadbent, 1986) was administrated to 12 patients with schizophrenia (4 men) and 12 control participants. In this version (TeMA, Neumann & Philippot, 2006), participants had to recollect specific past events or to imagine specific future scenarios in response to cue words. Results showed that patients retrieved fewer specific autobiographical memories and generated fewer specific future events than controls. In addition, their difficulty to imagine the future was correlated to their lack of specificity in the retrieval of past memories. The possibility that memory impairments could affect imageability of the future might have central clinical implications. Indeed, it suggests that cognitive deficits may play an important role in the feelings of hopelessness about the future often encountered in schizophrenia.

Type
Poster Session 1: Schizophrenia and Other Psychosis
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2007
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