Span of apprehension deficits during the postpsychotic stages of schizophrenia. A replication and extension.

Thirty-five schizophrenic and 20 manic-depressive outpatients and 20 normal controls were administered a measure of visual information processing, the span of apprehension. The schizophrenic outpatients made significantly fewer correct detections of the target stimuli than did the manic-depressives and normal controls, particularly for conditions in which the target stimuli were embedded in four and nine irrelevant stimuli. A subgroup of schizophrenics produced the overall group differences. In a comparison of a subgroup of schizophrenics who showed impaired performance on the ten-letter array with the remaining schizophrenics, the ten-letter array appeared to be tapping processes that are independent of overall adjustment, the presence of particular symptoms, premorbid social adjustment, general demographic characteristics, and the presence of generalized performance deficits. The span of apprehension may be a marker for some subgroups of schizophrenia.