This project examines in normals basic cognitive issues arising from comparisons of the cognitive functioning of schizophrenic and normal individuals. Central to this research is the investigation of basic aspects of selective attention --how organisms selectively respond to a target stimulus when other stimuli in the environment evoke competing responses. This year a major focus continues to be on negative priming--the psychological tendency when an object is ignored for subsequent responses to that object to be slower or less accurate than responses to new objects. We developed and began to implement several new experimental procedures to further investigate the parameters of the phenomena and to link it to other cognitive characteristics such as working memory capacity. In addition, we have also begun a program of research on working memory capacity which examines how such capacity is related to the suppression of a relevant and intrusive thoughts during tasks performance.
