Deficit and nondeficit forms of schizophrenia: neuropsychological evaluation.

The neuropsychological function of 15 deficit and 15 matched nondeficit syndrome schizophrenics was compared to that of 15 age- and sex-matched normal subjects. Both schizophrenic groups performed poorly on the Psychomotor factor compared to the normals. Only the deficit group performed more poorly on the General Performance factor. The results were not associated with severity of either positive or negative symptoms at the time of testing. These findings support the usefulness of the deficit syndrome distinction in contradistinction to the cross-sectional positive and negative symptom dichotomy.