Effect of antipsychotic medication on speed of information processing in schizophrenic patients.

The authors evaluated the effects of antipsychotic medication and schizophrenia on speed of information processing. Medicated (N - 20) as well as unmedicated (N = 16) schizophrenic patients showed more evidence of slow information processing than did depressed control subjects (N = 20). The medicated schizophrenic patients had higher levels of general psychopathology but also showed superior information processing speed compared with the unmedicated schizophrenic patients. These data confirm that the schizophrenic patients are slow information processors and that antipsychotic medication probably does not cause, and may actually reverse, slowness of information processing in schizophrenic patients.