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Consciousness, Information Processing and Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

C. D. Frith
C. D. Frith*
Affiliation:
Division of Psychiatry, Clinical Research Centre, Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA1 3UJ
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Summary

The symptoms of schizophrenia can be interpreted as the result of a defect in the mechanism that controls and limits the contents of consciousness. This defect can be understood as excessive self-awareness. Normally most of the complex information processing which is continuously required by even simple acts of perception, language and thought goes on below the level of awareness; whereas in schizophrenic patients some of this processing, or the results of this processing, not in themselves abnormal, become conscious. This excessive awareness can account for the typical symptoms of schizophrenia and explains many of the specific cognitive abnormalities found in schizophrenic patients.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 134 , Issue 3 , March 1979 , pp. 225 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1979 

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