Visual backward masking deficits are specific to female observers scoring high on cognitive disorganisation

Visual backward masking (VBM) deficits are a potential endophenotype of schizophrenia. VBM deficits were found in schizophrenic patients, in their unaffected relatives, and in healthy students scoring high in "cognitive disorganisation" (CD; Cappe et al., 2012). In the latter study we found post-hoc that females seemed to be stronger affected than males. This hypothesis was tested here in a fresh sample of 29 male and 27 female students varying in their self-reported schizotypy scores. In addition, we tested performance in Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST). As expected, we found significant VBM deficits in female students scoring high in CD but not in the males. We found no significant WCST deficits in individuals scoring high in CD. Our results add further evidence that VBM is a potential endophenotype of schizophrenia. Future research will investigate whether sex differences in VBM are related to hormonal differences or a sex-specific bias in the self-reports.