Numerical distance effect in patients with schizophrenia

Ali Mohammad Pourrahimi; Shahrzad Mazhari; Mohammad Shabani; Yousef Moghadas Tabrizi; Vahid Sheibani

doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2016.01.065

Numerical distance effect in patients with schizophrenia

Neurosci Lett. 2016 Mar 23:617:1-5. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2016.01.065. Epub 2016 Feb 1.

Authors

Ali Mohammad Pourrahimi¹, Shahrzad Mazhari², Mohammad Shabani¹, Yousef Moghadas Tabrizi³, Vahid Sheibani¹

Affiliations

¹ Neuroscience Research Centre, Institute of Neuropharmacology Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
² Neuroscience Research Centre, Institute of Neuropharmacology Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ Neuroscience Research Centre, Institute of Neuropharmacology Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; Faculty of Physical Education & Sport Science, Tehran University, Iran.

PMID: 26845561
DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2016.01.065

Abstract

There is growing evidence showing that mental representation of numbers is impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Yet, no study has examined the distance effect in the patients. We assessed the distance effect using two number size comparison tasks, with different number references (5 and 7) in 23 patients and 28 healthy individuals. Response times and error rates significantly increased when the distances between the centered references and the targets decreased in both groups. However, patients responded significantly slower and had more error rates compared to controls. Our finding indicates distance effect in patients is similar to the controls, indicating an automatic numerical processing is preserved in patients with schizophrenia.

Keywords: Distance effect; Number comparison; Schizophrenia.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Case-Control Studies
Cognition*
Female
Humans
Male
Mathematics*
Reaction Time
Schizophrenic Psychology*