Stimuli may have little impact on the deficit of visual working memory accuracy in first-episode schizophrenia

PURPOSE: Working memory (WM) deficits have been observed in people with schizophrenia (SZ) and are considered a core cognitive dysfunction in these patients. However, little is known about how stimuli and memory load influence visual WM deficits. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In the present study, we adopted a match-to-sample task to examine the visual WM in 18 first-episode patients with SZ and 18 healthy controls (HCs). Faces and houses were used as the stimuli, and there were two levels of memory load – one item and two items; the average accuracy (ACC) and reaction time were calculated for each condition. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and the Personal and Social Performance scale were used to assess the psychiatric symptoms and social function, respectively. RESULTS: The results showed equivalent levels of WM deficit when using face and house stimuli. Moreover, the WM deficits were not related to the duration of illness, medication, or SZ symptoms. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that stimuli may have little impact on ACC in WM tasks in people with SZ. In addition, the memory load may have little impact on WM ACC when the load is relatively low.