Schizophrenia Research Trends

68Guy Sandneras soon as their early adolescence. This could be interpreted as a progressive deterioration ofmemorization, starting before the visible onset of the disease.Figure 4.1. Cognitive disabilities in schizophrenia: This drawing shows that representations of sensoryexperiences as well as of possible actions (memories) are inserted between the actual world (on the left)and the central executive system (on the right). The automatic process that triggers actions or guides theattention and intention spotlights in response to changes in the environment - according to standard pastexperiences (red arrows) - remains unaffected by schizophrenia. However, the top-down managementof such stimulus-response process is altered because of: 1. abnormal memory organization, 2. poorcentral executive (cortical) functioning or 3. modified top-down commands.CONSEQUENCES OF THE IMPAIRMENT OF ATTENTION,AWARENESS AND MEMORY ON SOCIAL INTERACTIONA new subfield has arisen recently in Cognitive Sciences, namely Social Cognition. Itmay provide specific explanations for the poor relationship of patients with other people,initially interpreted as a mere consequence of the perturbation of their personal cognitivepossibilities. Now it is admitted that the individual cognitive disorder of patients onlyaccounts for a part of their social difficulties [190], and this implicates that communicatingwith others is a specific brain function. Its study rests on specific theoretical development andnew, original methods have been developed in this field. Rather than drawing a list oftheories and methods, I will consider them in turns, using a concrete illustrative model,focused on the difficulty in remaining or returning to a vocational activity [183].Furthermore, this model allows delimiting what results come from personal disabilities, orfrom what expresses a social communication disorder.Prototypal tasks: Let us imagine that a patient gets a job where he has to preparepackages of little mechanical parts for a supermarket, a realistic and simple task for a healthy