Numerical distance effect in patients with schizophrenia

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.