Sustained attention deficits in relation to psychometrically identified schizotypy: Evaluating a potential endophenotypic marker

Sustained attention deficits have been posited as a potential endophenotypic marker of vulnerability to schizophrenia. Prior studies have indicated that schizophrenia patients, their first-degree relatives, and psychosis-prone individuals, identified on the basis of measures of positive schizotypy, have demonstrated sustained attention deficits. To date, there have been no published reports of sustained attention deficits in individuals with negative schizotypy, as measured by the revised Social Anhedonia Scale. In this study, we examined sustained attention, measured with the CPT-Identical Pairs version, in 160 individuals with elevated scores on the Chapman Perceptual Aberration and/or Magical Ideation Scales, 96 individuals with elevated scales on the Social Anhedonia Scale, and 137 controls. Both psychosis-prone groups performed more poorly than the controls in terms of discrimination ability, as measured by d′, though the groups did not differ in terms of either their reaction time or overall response criterion (lnβ). These results provide evidence that both positive and negative aspects of schizotypy are associated with sustained attention deficits, as measured by the Continuous Performance Test. The findings add to the converging evidence indicating that sustained attention deficits are a potential endophenotypic indicator of a schizophrenia diathesis.