Preserved Subliminal Processing and Impaired Conscious Access in Schizophrenia

Abstract

A functional breakdown of large-scale cortical integrative processes caused by abnormal corticocortical and corticosubcortical long-range connectivity is postulated in schizophrenia.^1-14 A crucial issue concerns whether, in addition to this deficit at the level of cognitive integration, patients with schizophrenia also have other possibly unrelated deficits of a lower and more modular nature.^15-22 Indeed, some experimental results arising from studies of visual backward masking have suggested a low-level visual deficit. In visual backward masking, the visibility of a briefly presented stimulus is reduced by a mask presented shortly after the stimulus.^23,24 Patients with schizophrenia consistently show a deficit in the perception of backward-masked stimuli. Compared with normal control subjects, they require a longer interval between the stimulus and mask to identify the stimulus.^25-27