Impaired cognition and amotivation are considered core features of psychotic disorders. Amotivation may manifest as reduced willingness to expend effort on cognitive tasks. It remains unclear whether reduced effort is responsible for any of the observed cognitive deficits in these patients, as we do not generally assess continuous effort during testing. In the current study, we tested whether disengagement of effort is greater during cognitive performance in individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP) compared with healthy community members. We used a novel task called Cognitive Effort and DisEngagement (CEDE), which increases in difficulty and permits skipping any trial without penalty. No additional monetary incentives were used, and skips were used as an index of effort disengagement. We found that FEP patients had lower overall accuracy on the CEDE, but they also skipped significantly more, specifically on difficult trials. Self-reported amotivation significantly predicted skips among patients. The present results suggest that disengagement of effort may account for a portion of cognitive test performance among individuals with FEP. This possibility is relevant to cognitive remediation, as effort and ability may optimally be targeted by different interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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首发精神病的认知努力和动机。

认知和动机受损被认为是精神病的核心特征。缺乏动力可能表现为在认知任务上花费精力的意愿降低。目前尚不清楚减少努力是否是这些患者观察到的任何认知缺陷的原因，因为我们通常不评估测试期间的持续努力。在目前的研究中，我们测试了与健康社区成员相比，首发精神病 (FEP) 个体在认知表现期间的努力脱离是否更大。我们使用了一项名为 Cognitive Effort and DisEngagement (CEDE) 的新任务，它增加了难度并允许跳过任何试验而不会受到惩罚。没有使用额外的金钱激励措施，跳过被用作努力脱离的指标。我们发现 FEP 患者在 CEDE 上的总体准确度较低，但他们跳过的次数也明显更多，特别是在困难的试验中。自我报告的动机显着预测了患者的跳跃。目前的结果表明，努力脱离可能是 FEP 个体认知测试表现的一部分。这种可能性与认知补救有关，因为努力和能力可能是不同干预措施的最佳目标。（PsycINFO 数据库记录 (c) 2020 APA，保留所有权利）。这种可能性与认知补救有关，因为努力和能力可能是不同干预措施的最佳目标。（PsycINFO 数据库记录 (c) 2020 APA，保留所有权利）。这种可能性与认知补救有关，因为努力和能力可能是不同干预措施的最佳目标。（PsycINFO 数据库记录 (c) 2020 APA，保留所有权利）。