Visuospatial working memory in schizotypal personality disorder patients.

BACKGROUND Cognitive processing deficits have been identified as an abnormality that schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) individuals share with schizophrenic patients. It has been hypothesized that impaired working memory may be a critical component of several of the more complex cognitive deficits found in schizophrenia spectrum patients. METHOD 18 DSM-III-R SPD patients, and 17 normal comparison subjects were compared on a pen and paper visuospatial working memory task. Moreover, we identified a second psychiatric comparison group comprised of nine patients with other, non-odd cluster personality disorder diagnoses who met no more than one of the SPD criteria and were also tested on the same task. Each person was given 14 immediate recall trials and 10 trials using a 10 s delay. RESULTS SPD patients performed significantly worse than normal control subjects on the working memory task. SPD patients also performed significantly worse compared to the non-schizophrenia-related personality disorder psychiatric comparison group. CONCLUSIONS Like schizophrenic patients, SPD patients demonstrate working memory impairment compared to normal controls. This impairment may be specific to the schizophrenia-related personality disorders.