Reexamination of executive functions in psychosis-prone college students

The verbal and nonverbal executive functions of 19 psychosis-prone and 19 normal controls were examined. Subjects completed the WAIS-R Block Design and Vocabulary subtests, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), the Controlled Word Association Test (COWAT), the Booklet Category Test (BCT), the Design Fluency Test (DFT), and the Trail Making Test (TMT) parts A and B. Analysis of the performance patterns on these measures revealed that psychosis-prone college students exhibit relative deficits on all of the above verbal and nonverbal measures of executive functions but not on measures of nonexecutive functions. These findings confirm previously reported studies that have correlated executive functions and pre-frontal structural deficits with schizotypal personality traits and provide additional support for the association between neuropsychological functions and certain personality traits.