Memory and vigilance training to improve social perception in schizophrenia

Previous research has suggested that social cue recognition in schizophrenia may be significantly associated with visual vigilance and verbal memory. Therefore, we predicted that subjects who participated in a cognitive rehabilitation program that incorporated vigilance and memory training strategies would show significantly better social cue recognition than subjects participating in vigilance training alone. Forty subjects with a DSM-III-R diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were randomly assigned to either a vigilance-alone or a vigilance-plus-memory training condition. Results showed that subjects in the vigilance-plus-memory condition were able to identify social cues in the videotaped training materials significantly better than subjects in the vigilance-alone condition. This difference was evident in an independent measure of social cue recognition and was present at a 48 h follow-up. Implications for future development of cognitive rehabilitation for schizophrenia were discussed.