Self-imagination can enhance memory in individuals with schizophrenia

ABSTRACT

Objective: Previous research has demonstrated that self-referential strategies can be applied to improve memory in various memory- impaired populations. However, little is known regarding the relative effectiveness of self-referential strategies in schizophrenia patients. The main aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a new self-referential strategy known as self- imagination (SI) on a free recall task.

Methods: Twenty schizophrenia patients and 20 healthy controls intentionally encoded words under five instructions: superficial processing, semantic processing, semantic self-referential processing, episodic self-referential processing and semantic self- imagining. Other measures included depression, psychotic symptoms and cognitive measures.

Results: We found a SI effect in memory as self- imagining resulted in better performance in memory retrieval than semantic and superficial encoding in schizophrenia patients. The memory boost for self-referenced information in comparison to semantic processing was not found for other self-referential strategies. In addition no relationship between clinical variables and free recall performances was found. In controls, the SI condition did not result in better performance. The three self-referential strategies yielded better free recall than both superficial and semantic encoding.

Conclusions: This study provides evidence of the clinical utility of self-imagining as a mnemonic strategy in schizophrenia patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-imagining
• self-reference effect
• free recall
• schizophrenia

Acknowledgements

We thank all the subjects who participated in the study. The authors would like to thank Valérie Macioce for her careful reading of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.