Minnesota Community-Based Cognitive Training in Early Psychosis

"1. Auditory Training Module (20 hours): exercises designed to improve speed and accuracy of auditory processing while engaging working memory and cognitive control. Exercises adjust difficulty level to maintain an \~80% correct performance. Exercises contain stimuli spanning the acoustic organization of speech. In the initial stages, stimuli exaggerate the rapid temporal transitions by increasing amplitude and stretching in time. The exaggeration is gradually removed so that by the end, all stimuli have characteristics representative of real-world speech.~2. Social Cognition Module (10 hours): exercises designed to improve core deficits of social cognition in psychosis. Exercises apply principles of implicit learning to restore capacity to process and utilize socially-relevant information, and includes training to improve perception of affect (visual/vocal) and social cues (faces, gazes, social situations), theory of mind, self-referential style, emotion labeling and working memory."

The GCE will focus on executive dysfunction, as this domain is a significant, functionally important area of deficit in schizophrenia and has been the target of many previous studies. We will train this domain using a suite of engaging, adaptive web-based exercises that target executive function, intelligence, and spatial navigation developed by Posit Science. The exercises will be provide engaging, adaptive training as described in the Targeted Cognitive Training.

Individuals in this study are receiving care from a coordinated specialty care clinic (CSC) for first episode psychosis. These clinics are following the NAVIGATE treatment model for early psychosis.