The dynamic process of hyperfocusing and hyperfiltering in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is typically characterized by impairments in selective attention. However, recent evidence seems to counterintuitively show that people with schizophrenia (PSZ) exhibit superior attentional selection compared with healthy control subjects, an intriguing phenomenon known as hyperfocusing. Such supranormal attention is believed to underlie multiple kinds of cognitive impairments observed in PSZ, and thus exploring this remarkable phenomenon holds promise for inspiring innovative treatments aimed at addressing cognitive deficits in PSZ. Here, in this case–control study comprising four independent experiments, we aimed to investigate two central questions regarding this phenomenon. First, we sought to investigate whether hyperfocusing on the relevant information would be accompanied with hyperfiltering on irrelevant information, by adopting tasks wherein participants were asked to focus on one feature (that is, color) of an object while ignoring another (that is, shape). Another important objective is to understand how such supranormal attention unfolds over the course of cognitive processing by manipulating the time course. Our research reveals that hyperfocusing on relevant information coincides with greater filtering (that is, hyperfiltering) of irrelevant information from the same object. Additionally, our research shows that hyperfocusing develops through continuously enhancing the relevant information and progressively weakening the irrelevant information over time. Crucially, these key findings are replicated and generalized across different designs and research paradigms, underscoring the robustness and replicability of our study. These convincing findings extend our understanding of cognitive mechanisms behind hyperfocusing.