Enhanced latent inhibition in high schizotypy individuals

Abstract

Latent inhibition refers to a retardation in learning about a stimulus that has been rendered familiar by non-reinforced preexposure, relative to a non-preexposed stimulus. Latent inhibition has been shown to be inversely correlated with schizotypy, and abnormal in people with schizophrenia, but these findings are inconsistent. One potential contributing factor to this inconsistency is that many tasks that purport to measure latent inhibition are confounded by alternative effects that also retard learning and co-vary with schizotypy (e.g. learned irrelevance and conditioned inhibition). Here, two within-participant experiments are reported that measure the effect of familiarity on learning without the confound of these alternative effects. Consistent with some of the clinical literature, a positive association was found between the rate of learning to the familiar, but not the novel, stimulus and the unusual-experiences dimension of schizotypy — implying abnormally persistent latent inhibition in high schizotypy individuals.