Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Intact feature fusion in schizophrenic patients

  • ORIGINAL PAPER
  • Published:
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract.

How the various features of an object are bound to a unified percept is one of the most fundamental problems the human brain has to solve. Whereas healthy observers usually do not reveal binding errors, it has been proposed that schizophrenic patients suffer from binding deficits. To elucidate such deficits, we investigated one of the most basic binding or integration paradigms: feature fusion. In feature fusion, two stimuli are presented in rapid succession. Using a vernier paradigm, we could, recently, show that the second stimulus determines feature fusion more strongly than the first one (Herzog et al. 2003). However, the first presented stimulus determines feature fusion when a grating follows the two stimuli. Reversal of dominance has occurred. In this study, we show that schizophrenic patients reveal qualitatively the same integration characteristics in feature fusion as healthy controls do. Hence, although some aspects of visual processing are strongly disturbed in schizophrenia as revealed by masking studies, feature fusion appears to be, at least qualitatively, spared. Our fusion paradigm allows one to investigate intact and deficient visual processing in schizophrenic patients with great detail and to elucidate the nature of deficits of visual processing in schizophrenia.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2002) http://www.ahcpr.gov/clinic/schzrec.htm

  2. Andreasen NC (1983) Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS). Iowa City, University of Iowa

  3. Andreasen NC (1984) Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS). Iowa City, University of Iowa

  4. Andreasen NC, Arndt S, Alliger R, Miller D, Flaum M (1995) Symptoms of schizophrenia. Methods, meanings, and mechanisms. Arch Gen Psychiatry 52:342–351

    Google Scholar 

  5. Andreasen NC, Olsen S (1982) Negative vs positive schizophrenia. Definition and validation. Arch Gen Psychiatry 39:789–794

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Bortz J (1999) Statistik für Sozialwissenschaftler. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York

  7. Braff DL (1989) Sensory input deficits and negative symptoms in schizophrenic patients. Am J Psychiatry 146:1006–1011

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Braff DL, Saccuzzo DP (1981) Information processing dysfunction in paranoid schizophrenia: a two-factor deficit. Am J Psychiatry 138:1051–1056

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Braff DL, Saccuzzo DP (1985) The time course of informationprocessing deficits in schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry 142:170–174

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Breitmeyer BG (1984) Visual Masking: An Integrative Approach. New York: Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  11. Brickenkamp R (1994) Test d2 Aufmerksamkeits-Belastungs-Test Handanweisung. 8., erweiterte und neu gestaltete Auflage. Goettingen, Bern, Toronto, Seattle: Hogrefe

  12. Butler PD, DeSanti LA, Maddox J, Harkavy-Friedman JM, Amador XF, Goetz RR, Javitt DC, Gorman JM (2002) Visual backward-masking deficits in schizophrenia: relationship to visual pathway function and symptomatology. Schizophr Res 59:199–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Cadenhead KS, Geyer MA, Butler RW, Perry W, Sprock J, Braff DL (1997) Information processing deficits of schizophrenia patients: relationship to clinical ratings, gender and medication status. Schizophrenia Res 28:51–62

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Cadenhead KS, Serper Y, Braff DL (1998) Transient versus sustained visual channels in the visual backward masking deficits of schizophrenia patients. Biol Psychiatry 43:132–138

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Cuesta M, Peralta V, Gil P, Artamendi M (2003) Psychopathological dimensions in first-episode psychoses. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 253:73–79

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Doniger GM, Silipo G, Rabinowicz EF, Snodgrass JG, Javitt DC (2001) Impaired sensory processing as a basis for object-recognition deficits in schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry 158:1818–1826

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Friedman-Hill SR, Robertson LC, Treisman A (1995) Parietal Contributions to Visual Feature Binding: Evidence from a patient with Bilateral Lesions. Science 269:853–855

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Garcia-Toro M, Blanco C, Gonzalez A, Salva J (2001) Psychopathology and the binding problem. Med Hypotheses 57:718–723

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Gray CM (1999) The Temporal Correlation Hypothesis of Visual Feature Integration: Still Alive and well. Neuron 24:31–47

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Green MF (1997) Schizophrenia from a Neurocognitive Perspective: Probing the Impenetrable Darkness. Allyn and Bacon

    Google Scholar 

  21. Green MF, Nuechterlein KH, Breitmeyer B (1997) Backward masking performance in unaffected siblings of schizophrenic patients: Evidence for a vulnerability indicator. Arch Gen Psychiatry 54:465–472

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Green MF, Nuechterlein KH, Breitmeyer B, Mintz J (1999) Backward masking in unmedicated schizophrenic patients in psychotic remission: Possible reflection of aberrant cortical oscillation. Am J Psychiatry 156:1367–1373

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Green MF, Nuechterlein KH, Mintz J (1994a) Backward masking in schizophrenia and mania, I: specifying a mechanism. Arch Gen Psychiatry 51:939–944

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Green MF, Nuechterlein KH, Mintz J (1994b) Backward masking in schizophrenia and mania, II: specifying the visual channels. Arch Gen Psychiatry 51:945–951

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Green MF, Walker E (1986) Symptom correlates of vulnerability to backward masking in schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry 143:181–186

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Herzog MH, Koch C (2001) Seeing properties of an invisible object: feature inheritance and shine-through. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:4271–4275

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Herzog MH, Kopmann S, Brand A (2003) Intact figure-groundsegmentation in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Res (in revision)

  28. Herzog MH, Parish L, Koch C, Fahle M (2003) Fusion of competing features is not serial. Vision Res 43:1331–1360

    Google Scholar 

  29. Hill SK, Ragland JD, Gur RC, Gur RE (2002) Neuropsychological profiles delineate distinct profiles of schizophrenia, an interaction between memory and executive function, and uneven distributionof clinical subtypes. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 24(6):765–780

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. Horn W (1983) Leistungspruefsystem LPS Handanweisung fuer die Durchfuehrung, Auswertung und Interpretation. 2., erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage. Goettingen, Toronto, Zuerich: Hogrefe

  31. Keri S, Antal A, Szekeres G, Benedek G, Janka Z (2000) Visual information processing in patients with schizophrenia: evidence for the impairment of central mechanisms. Neurosci Lett 293:69–71

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Keri S, Szendi I, Kelemen O, Benedek G, Janka Z (2001) Remitted schizophrenia-spectrum patients with spared working memory show information processing abnormalities. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 251:60–65

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Lehrl S, Merz J, Burkard G, Fischer B (1991) Mehrfachwahl-Wortschatz-Intelligenztest MWT-A (Parallelform zum MWT-B). Erlangen: perimed-Fachbuch-Verlagsgesellschaft

  34. Liddle PF (1987) The symptoms of chronic schizophrenia. A reexamination of the positive-negative dichotomy. Br J Psychiatry 151:145–151

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Liddle, PF (1996) Syndromes in schizophrenia and their neuropsychological and neuroanatomical correlates. In: Pantelis C, Nelson HE, Barnes TRE (eds) Schizophrenia. A neuropsychological perspective. Wiley, Chichester/New York, pp 299–316

  36. Nuechterlein KH, Dawson ME, Green MF (1994) Informationprocessing abnormalities as neuropsychological vulnerability indicators for schizophrenia. Acta Psychiatr Scand 90(suppl. 384):71–79

    Google Scholar 

  37. Peralta V, Cuesta MJ, Giraldo C, Cardenas A, Gonzalez F (2002). Classifying psychotic disorders: issues regarding categorial vs. dimensional approaches and time frame to assess symptoms. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 252:12–18

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Phillips WA, Silverstein, SM (2003) Convergence of biological and psychological perspectives on cognitive coordination in schizophrenia. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26:65–82

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Roskies AL (1999) The binding problem. Neuron 24:7–9 (and associated articles)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Rund BR, Landro NI, Orbeck AL (1993) Stability in backward masking performance in schizophrenics, affectively disturbed patients, and normal subjects. J Nerv Ment Dis 181:233–237

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  41. Saccuzzo DP, Cadenhead KS, Braff DL (1996) Backward versus forward visual masking deficits in schizophrenic patients: centrally, not peripherally, mediated? Am J Psychiatry 153:1564–1570

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. Saccuzzo DP, Hirt M, Spencer TJ (1974) Backward masking as a measure of attention in schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol 83:512–522

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  43. Schwartz BD, Mallott DB, Winstead DK (1988) Preattentive deficit in temporal processing by chronic schizophrenics. Biol Psychiatry 23:664–669

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  44. Schwartz BD, Winstead DK (1982) Visual processing deficits in acute and chronic schizophrenics. Biol Psychiatry 17:1377–1387

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Singer W (1999) Neuronal Synchrony: A Versatile Code for the Definition of Relations? Neuron 24:49–65

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  46. Slaghuis WL, Bakker VJ (1995) Forward and backward visual masking of contour by light in positive- and negative-symptom schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol 104:41–54

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  47. Slaghuis WL, Bishop AM (2001) Luminance flicker sensitivity in positive- and negative-symptom schizophrenia. Exp Brain Res 138:88–99

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  48. Slaghuis WL, Curran CE (1999) Spatial frequency masking in positive- and negative-symptom schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol 108:42–50

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Treisman A (1998) Feature binding, attention and object perception. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, London: B Biol Sci 29, 353(1373):1295–1306

    Google Scholar 

  50. von der Malsburg C (1995) Binding in models of perception and brain function. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 5:520–526

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  51. Ward R, Danziger S, Owen V, Rafal R (2002) Deficits in spatial coding and feature binding following damage to spatiotopic maps in the human pulvinar. Nat Neurosci 5(2):99–100

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Yates AJ (1966) Psychological deficit. Annu Rev Psychol 17:111–144

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen, Institute for Human Neurobiology, Argonnenstr. 3, 28211, Bremen, Germany

    Sabine Kopmann & Michael Herzog

  2. Klinikum Bremen Ost, Züricher Str. 40, 28325, Bremen, Germany

    Andreas Brand

Authors
  1. Andreas Brand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sabine Kopmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Michael Herzog
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreas Brand.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Brand, A., Kopmann, S. & Herzog, M. Intact feature fusion in schizophrenic patients. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 254, 281–288 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-004-0493-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-004-0493-2

Key words

Search

Navigation