The current investigation uses a large non-clinical sample of undergraduate college students (N=189) to investigate schizotypal traits among cannabis and non-cannabis users, as well as the temporal order of the onset of these traits and cannabis use. Findings suggest that regular cannabis users are significantly more prone to cognitive and perceptual distortions as well as disorganization, but ...

There is increasing evidence that schizophrenia is associated with an attentional or information processing deficit or both. These "early deficit" theories challenge the position that schizophrenia is primarily a disorder of thinking and higher cognitive operations. A tachistoscopic backward masking task was applied in matched groups of 20 schizophrenic, 20 schizotypal, and 20 depressive psychi...

The aim of this study within the Athens Study of Psychosis Proneness and Incidence of Schizophrenia (ASPIS) was the examination of the latent structure of schizotypal dimensions among a large population of young male conscripts in the Greek Air Force during their first week of military training. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on 1,355 reliable responders to the self-rated Schi...

Schizotypal experiences and depressive symptoms are quite common among adolescents, and have been considered as risk markers for schizophrenia-spectrum and mood disorders. The main goal of the present study was to analyze the relationship between schizotypal experiences and depressive symptoms in a community sample of non-clinical adolescents. The sample comprised a total of 1653 participants, ...

Objective—Schizotypal personality traits are associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders demonstrate increased dopamine transmission in the striatum. We sought to determine if individual differences in normal variation in schizotypal traits correlate with dopamine transmission in the striatum and extra-striatal brain regions. Method—63 hea...

A probabilistic association task that manipulated the necessity to temporarily store information was combined with the recording of event-related potentials. In Experiment 1, scores obtained from a positive schizotypy scale were used to categorize participants as either low or high schizotypal individuals. Low, but not high, schizotypal individuals displayed evidence for selective associative l...

Two hypotheses were considered regarding the relationship between positive schizotypy and metaphor processing. On the basis of continuity between schizophrenia and schizotypy, high schizotypal individuals would be expected to be impaired at metaphor processing. However, given the right hemisphere processing bias that has been associated with positive schizotypy, they would be expected to be sup...

The validation of questionnaires intended to identify the position of a subject along a normal/schizotypal/schizophrenic continuum has always been problematic. Schizophrenic patients are not good at completing questionnaire, and validation has to depend on the identification of "at risk" groups. Watt Grubb & Elenmeyer-Kimling (1982) found that the adolescent offspring of schizophrenics show the...

Schizophrenia research shows cognitive impairments in areas such as working memory and intellectual functioning. However, less research has focused on these relationships, and the differential associations in the two sexes, among healthy samples. This study determined the relationship between schizotypal traits, as measured by the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B), and working...

OBJECTIVE To present nationally representative findings on the prevalence, correlates, and comorbidity of and disability associated with DSM-IV schizotypal personality disorder (SPD). METHOD This study used the 2004-2005 Wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, which targeted a nationally representative sample of the adult civilian population of the United State...