[Memory performance and instruction effects in schizophrenia. A comparative study of chronic schizophrenic patients and healthy probands].

34 chronically schizophrenic persons were matched with 34 healthy control participants according to age, level of education, and sex and received memory tests (short-term, priming, working, prospective, episodic, source and semantic long-term memory) and tests of attention and intelligence. Patients performed worse on all tests. The patients' memory deficits compared with controls are nearly one standard deviation greater than the differences in attention and intelligence. The deficits are smaller for priming and semantic long-term memory than for short-term, working, prospective, episodic, and source memory. After one short instruction all patients and controls received a repeat administration of the tests. Patients showed a lower, but also significant improvement for short-term, working, and prospective memory. We conclude that schizophrenia patients might suffer from specific memory deficits (specific vulnerability of strategic and thus of interference- or context-sensitive memory tasks) not attributable to more general psychopathologic symptoms.