An attempt was made to separate the effects of length of illness from the effects of length of hospitalization on the vocabulary and concept formation performance of chronic schizophrenic and chronic nonpsychiatric patients. Groups of these patients approximately matched for length of illness, but which differed in terms of total time spent in institutions (several years vs. a few months) were compared on the Rattan and Chapman vocabulary test that includes associative distractors and on several concept formation measures derived by Harrow et al. from the Object Sorting Test. The schizophrenic inpatients and outpatients (all under antipsychotic medication) were further subdivided into paranoid and nonparanoid subgroups and equated on severity of current disturbance. A total of 90 patients served as subjects. The results indicated that nonparanoid schizophrenics show the most deficits on the measures used in the study (particularly associative intrusions and idiosyncratic thinking), while paranoid schizophrenics performed at levels that were comparable to the performance of the chronic nonpsychiatric patients. It was also found that associative intrusions and idiosyncratic thinking were the measures that provided the best discrimination between patients with prolonged as opposed to short institutionalization. It was concluded that neither length of illness nor length of institutionalization by itself accounts for the cognitive deficits found in this study. Rather, such effects depend on the particular subtypes of schizophrenic patients, the particular indices of thought deficits, and the particular measuring instruments. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-146). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-70).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-310).

Research has consistently shown schizophrenics to perform significantly poorer than normal controls on commonly used measures of neuropsychological functioning. Research on the neuropsychological functioning of first-degree relatives of schizophrenics who do not themselves have schizophrenia is comparatively sparse but suggests the likelihood of deficits in this group as well. A battery of standard neuropsychological tests was administered to three groups: first-degree relatives of schizophrenics who do not themselves have schizophrenia (FDR-SCZ), first-degree relatives of persons with major depression and bipolar disorder (FDR-MOOD), and normal controls (NC). The FDRSCZ group was not found to demonstrate significantly impaired performance relative to the other two groups on any of the hypothesized or exploratory analyses. These implications of these findings are discussed with reference to previous studies and future research.

published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Objective: Studies in healthy individuals show that exerting self-control consumes cognitive resources, which reduces subsequent self-control performance. This is termed as the self-control depletion effect. Restoring the availability of blood glucose eliminates this impairment, which is deemed as the glucose facilitation effect. Patients with schizophrenia are found to have self-regulatory dysfunctions. This study aims to investigate whether patient’s (a) glucose facilitation effects will be impaired, and (b) will have exaggerated depletion in a self-control task, as compared with healthy population. Method: Forty patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and forty normal controls were recruited. This was a two drinks (glucose vs. placebo) x two depleting phases (self-control depleted vs. non-depleted) between-groups design. We examined the blood glucose levels before and after the self-control depletion phase and the subsequent performances in two self-control tasks (handgrip and Stroop Test) after the drink condition. Results: The four groups (depleting x glucose, depleting x placebo, non-depleting x glucose and non-depleting x placebo) of both patients and normal controls were comparable on a number of characteristics. The change in blood glucose level in the depleting group was significantly different from those in the non-depleting group. Two x two between-subjects ANOVAs were carried out to test the performances in the handgrip and Stroop task. Significant interactions were found in healthy controls regarding both tasks. However, a significant interaction was only found in patients regarding the handgrip task but not the Stroop task. Conclusions: This study demonstrated an impaired glucose facilitation effect in patients during a cognitive self-control task but not physical self-control task. The findings also suggested for the first time that a self-control depletion effect is intact in patients with schizophrenia, comparing with healthy individuals. / published_or_final_version / Psychological Medicine / Master / Master of Psychological Medicine