Internal component analysis on the event-based prospective memory of schizophrenia patients

Objective To compare the difference of prospective memory(PM) between schizophrenia patients and normal people, and to analyze the internal component of prospective memory using multinomial processing tree(MPT) model. Methods 17 schizophrenia patients and 17 age- and education-matched control participants completed an event-based PM task which was embedded within an ongoing computer-based color-matching task.Internal component of prospective memory was analyzed using multinomial processing tree(MPT) model. Results The scores of prospective memory performance in schizophrenia patients and normal controls were(21.83±2.46)% and (38.81±2.26)%, and the difference was statistically significant (t=2.11, P<0.05). The difference of ongoing task between schizophrenia patients ((75.88±0.43)%) and controls ((71.44±0.45)%) was statistically significant (t=2.79, P<0.05). The reaction time of schizophrenia patients was significantly longer than that of normal controls((2.34±1.41) s vs (1.81±1.19) s, t=11.24, P<0.05). The MPT model revealed a significant group difference in the prospective component (0.82 vs 0.97, =14.17, P<0.01) and retrospective component (0.54 vs 0.41, =14.17, P<0.01). Conclusion The prospective component of event-based prospective memory of schizophrenia patients was lower than normal controls, which may result in the impairment of PM performance. Key words: Schizophrenia; Event-based prospective memory; Prospective component; Retrospective component; MPT model