Does hallucination affect vigilance performance in schizophrenia? An exploratory study

The present study investigates the role of “auditory verbal hallucination” (AVH) in the attentional processes of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia compared with healthy participants. The sample consisted of 26 participants diagnosed with schizophrenia divided into – “schizophrenia with hallucination” (N = 12) and “schizophrenia without hallucination” (N = 14). 13 matched healthy participants were taken. A general health questionnaire was used to screen out psychiatric morbidity in healthy participants. The presence and/or absence of AVH were substantiated through the administration of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Only individuals having higher composite scores in the positive scale were included. Edinburgh Handedness Inventory was administered to all participants. Software designed to measure vigilance was used to assess attentional deficits in the three groups included in the study. The complexity of the “vigilance task” was varied across three parameters: (1) spatial position of the target stimulus and buffer, (2) frequency of the target stimulus and buffer and (3) colour of target stimulus and buffer. The performances of the 3 groups were compared statistically in terms of Hit, Miss and False Alarm scores. Results revealed that schizophrenia patients are deficient as compared to their healthy counterparts in the ability to focus on a specific target while inhibiting non-relevant information across all conditions. Also, schizophrenia patients who have AVH are relatively more deficient as compared to the schizophrenia patients without AVH. It can be concluded that perceptual abnormality in schizophrenia patients with hallucination has an additional negative impact on attentional processes.