People diagnosed with schizophrenia commonly experience the following cognitive impairments:
- Lower IQ scores
- Impaired attention
- Flawed working memory
- Deficits in verbal fluency and learning
- Executive functioning deficits
- Metamemory deficits

Cognitive impairments in schizophrenia

These are problems patient suffer from when they try to process and act on external information.

Examples of these are: poor social cognition, memory problems and poor attention spans. Some patients even have difficulty in making plans or taking decisions.



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Unlike what the name suggest, schizophrenia does not mean split personality. Rather it is encompass symptoms such as dissociative thinking, emotional disturbance, delusions and hallucinations. These symptoms can be broadly divided into three categories:

- Positive Symptoms: behaviors that are present or gained

- Negative Symptoms: behaviors that are absent or lost

- Cognitive Symptoms: difficulty in interpreting and acting on external information.

Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Breedlove, S. & Watson, N. (2017). Behavioral neuroscience, eighth edition. Oxford University Press.

Behavioral Neuroscience 8th Edition

These are characteristics of the individual that are absent but should be present. Some examples are as follows: 
- Absence of emotional expression 
- People have decreased facial expression which is also known as the flat affect 
- Patients are unable to find pleasure in everyday activities such as eating, social interaction and sexual relations. This is known as anhedonia 
- Patients also have impaired motivation, decrease in conversations with other people (alogia) and become socially withdrawn

Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Cognitive Symptoms of Schizophrenia

These are behavioral states that have been gained or added which should not be present. They include: 

- Hallucinations 
- Delusions 
- Disorganized thought and speech 
- Excited motor behavior

Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia

An effective method for understanding the classic symptoms of schizophrenia is to observe case studies, such as through videos, and actively identify the specific symptoms being displayed by the individuals.

Identifying Schizophrenia Symptoms in Case Studies

Read the following clinical description. Identify one example of a positive symptom, one example of a negative symptom, and one example of a cognitive symptom described in the case. For each example, briefly explain why it fits into that specific category.

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