When Proactivity Fails: An Electrophysiological Study of Establishing Reference in Schizophrenia

These findings suggest that proactive mechanisms of referential processing, reflected by the Nref effect, are impaired in schizophrenia, while reactive mechanisms, reflected by the positivity effects, are relatively spared. Indeed, patients may compensate for proactive deficits by retroactively engaging with context to influence the processing of inputs at a later stage of analysis.