General and personal memory knowledge and beliefs in schizophrenia patients and how these relate to objective cognitive abilities

Elisabeth Bacon (1) , Nathalie Huet (2) , Jean-Marie Danion (3)

1 Laboratoire de Psychopathologie et de Pharmacologie de la Cognition
2 CLLE - Cognition, langues, langage, ergonomie
3 Physiopathologie clinique et expérimentale de la schizophrénie

Subjective reports and theories about memory may have an influence on other beliefs and behaviours. Patients with schizophrenia suffer a wide range of deficits affecting their awareness of daily life, including memory. With the Metamemory Inventory in Adulthood (MIA) we ascertained patients’ memory knowledge and thoughts about their own cognitive capacities and about several aspects of cognitive functioning: personal capacities, knowledge of processes, use of strategies, perceived change with ageing, anxiety, motivation and mastery. The participants’ ratings were correlated with their intellectual, cognitive and psychiatric data. Patients felt they had a lower capacity and marginally lower mastery over their memory than comparison subjects. They reported less recourse to strategies, and higher levels of memory-related anxiety. However, their knowledge of basic memory pro-cesses, motivation to succeed, and perception of ageing effects were similar. So patients with schizophrenia do not suffer a general and non specific impairment of their metacognitive knowledge.

Domaines: Psychologie; Psychologie

Elisabeth Bacon, Nathalie Huet, Jean-Marie Danion. General and personal memory knowledge and beliefs in schizophrenia patients and how these relate to objective cognitive abilities. Consciousness and Cognition, 2011, 20 (4), pp.1315-1326. ⟨10.1016/j.concog.2011.02.017⟩. ⟨halshs-02099935⟩