Empirical research has indicated that schizophrenia patients are characterized by deficits in both attentional and emotional processes. However, there has been little theoretical work or empirical research examining the nature of the putative relations between these deficits. The primary goal of the proposed research is to posit and examine relations between deficits of attention and emotional responding in schizophrenia patients. Based on the extant literature on emotion- attention relations in nonpatients, as well as known deficits of emotion and attention in schizophrenia patients, several hypotheses are developed to guide the proposed research. First, based on previous research on attention in schizophrenia, schizophrenia patients are hypothesized to be impaired in their ability to utilize task relelvant information to direct attention to a target stimulus. Second, based on previous research on emotion and emotional deficits in schizophrenia, it is hypothesized that schizophrenia patients are impaired in the ability to maintain emotion-related motivational states over time. Third, it is proposed that the direction of attention and the maintenance of motivational state tap top-down influences common to emotional and attentional processes. These hypotheses will be tested in the proposed research by employing two tasks measuring modulation of the startle eyeblink, a non-verbal, psychophysiological measure of attention and emotional responding, in schizophrenia patient and matched control participants.
