Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Imitation limitations in schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia often have problems relating to other people. One of the ways we learn how to do this is through imitation and a U.S. study of 36 people compared the ability of people with schizophrenia and healthy controls to imitate a variety of gestures and expressions. The participants with schizophrenia were significantly impaired on all imitation tasks. Errors in imitation were significantly correlated with reduced social competence and increased negative symptoms but not with deficits in working memory.

Park, Sohee, Matthews, Natasha and Gibson, Crystal - Imitation, simulation and schizophrenia Schizophrenia Bulletin July 2008, 34(4), 698-707

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