Age and the discriminative "power" of the MMPI with schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic patients.

Compared the responses of 4 groups of 20 patients on 12 scales of the MMPI according to age (18-28 yr. or 45-56 yr.) and diagnosis (schizophrenic or nonschizophrenic). Results indicate that although young schizophrenics and nonschizophrenics were distinguished on the basis of expected profile differences, no significant differences were found between the 2 older groups. It is suggested that the greater communality of experiences shared by older Ss tends to have a leveling effect on overall profile differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of dynamometer tension on stimulus generalization in schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic patients.

Replicated and extended an earlier study, to test the prediction from the W. E. Broen and L. H. Storms theory that under certain conditions schizophrenics will display an arousal-produced decrement at the training stimulus on a generalization gradient. 14 acute schizophrenics and 10 nonschizophrenics were taught to press a lever to the left when a large square was projected and to the right for a small square. These squares and 6 graded squares of intermediate size were presented during test trials, while Ss gripped a dynamometer at 0, 1/6th, and 1/3rd of maximum tension. Heart rate and skin conductance were recorded. As predicted, schizophrenics showed a significant decrement at the training stimulus under 1/3rd maximum tension but no decrement at the most remote generalization stimulus with the same dominant response. Nonschizophrenics showed no decrement at any stimuli. Heart rate but not skin conductance showed a significant increase with increased muscle tension in both groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Size estimation in schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic subjects.

Studied size estimation in 120 male acute and chronic schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic psychiatric patients. No significant group differences were found in the size estimation levels, or when the groups were subdivided on the basis of both premorbid adjustment and paranoid status. All Ss increased their size estimation levels over the 3 trial blocks. The thematic content of the stimuli produced a significant effect in the chronic schizophrenic group, with the nonthreatening scenes being overestimated relative to the threatening scenes. Some methodological problems common to size estimation studies are noted, and the growing inconsistency in the size estimation literature is hypothesized to be due to these problems. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social competence and posthospital outcome among schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic psychiatric patients.

Although E. Zigler and L. Phillips (see 37:1 and 38:6) contend that an identical relationship between premorbid social competence and prognosis is found in both a schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic hospital population, supporting data are not presented. To test this hypothesis, the 3-yr posthospital outcomes of 81 schizophrenic and 85 nonschizophrenic previously hospitalized patients were separately related to the Zigler and Phillips' Social Competence Scale. The results indicate that among schizophrenics social competence is positively related to 2 out of 5 indexes of posthospital outcome: incidence (p     

Overinclusive thinking in acute schizophrenic patients.

Investigated 2 types of overinclusive thinking, behavioral and conceptual, in 110 acute psychiatric inpatients. The Object Sorting Test was administered and scored for the 2 types of overinclusion and for idiosyncratic (bizarre) thinking and rich associations. Results on behavioral overinclusion and rich associations were mixed. Behavioral overinclusion was more frequent in schizophrenics, but was also found in many acute nonschizophrenics. Conceptual overinclusion and idiosyncratic thinking were significantly more frequent among acute schizophrenics and were also found in delusional patients regardless of diagnosis. (41 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overinclusive thinking and delusions in schizophrenic patients.

15 schizophrenics with paranoid delusions, 15 schizophrenics with no delusions, and a control group of 15 nonschizophrenic hospitalized patients were given the Benjamin Proverbs test, the Mill Hill Vocabulary Scale, and 3 of Babcock's psychomotor speed tests. As predicted, there was a significant relationship between the presence or absence of delusions, and overinclusive thinking, as assessed by the average number of words needed to explain the proverbs and 2 time scores. Overinclusive patients tend to have paranoid delusions. There was no significant relationship between retardation, as assessed by the Babcock tests, and the presence of delusions. This finding complements an earlier finding of Harris and Metcalfe (see 32: 719) that slowness in schizophrenic patients is specifically associated with inappropriate affect and a poor prognosis, and Payne's (see 37: 5499) finding that a group of chronic schizophrenics was not overinclusive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Production of associative sequences in process-reactive schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic groups.

A previous study (Judson & Katahn, 1960) disclosed significant differences between process-reactive schizophrenics in the recall of friends' names over a 10-minute interval. The differences were greater than would have been expected from their recall of animal names and IQ scores. This was interpreted as reflecting a special restriction in interpersonal relationships in a generally impoverished relationship with the environment. The present study sought to extend the findings and employed both schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic patients. Both the process-reactive dimension and diagnostic category made significant independent and interacting contributions to the recall of friends' names, that is, the material with social connotations, but not to the recall of animal names. By subgroups, the rank order of recall from least to greatest, was process schizophrenics, process nonschizophrenics, reactive schizophrenics, reactive nonschizophrenics. The process-reactive distinction thus proved meaningful for nonschizophrenic as well as schizophrenic patients on this material. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Postdiction of the outcome of somatic therapy from the Rorschach records of schizophrenic patients.

The Rorschach protocols of 60 schizophrenic patients previously hospitalized were presented to 3 psychologists with the instructions to differentiate the 30 patients who had improved from the 30 who had not. The 4 factors of Conflict, Control, Flexibility, and Strength of Drive were selected and defined by the investigators together with the psychologists. Each patient was rated on a 5-point scale with the content analysis approach used primarily. The accuracy of all 3 psychologists in differentiating between the 2 groups of patients on all 4 of the factors was found to be significant beyond the .01% level of confidence according to the chisquare values obtained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's Rorschach object representations: Findings for a nonclinical sample.

Data are presented on the Mutuality of Autonomy (MOA) Scale for 40 preadolescent, normal Ss (21 girls, 19 boys). Ss gave modal responses indicative of benign interaction; counterbalanced maladaptive scores with adaptive representations in 90% of the cases; and avoided toxic, malevolent responses. This pattern lends further criterion validity to a measure increasingly used with psychiatric populations. Age and IQ were not significantly correlated with MOA scores. Pronounced gender differences were found, with girls producing significantly more adaptive and less malevolent MOA scores. A more detailed assessment of gender differences in object representational paradigms appears warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective reactivity of speech in schizophrenia patients and their nonschizophrenic relatives.

This study compared levels of referential communication disturbance in speech samples from 41 stable schizophrenia outpatients, 46 parents of patients, and 23 nonpsychiatric control participants in affectively positive versus affectively negative conditions. The speech of the patients and parents showed elevated frequencies of reference failures in the affectively positive condition compared with control participants; the speech of the patients became more disordered in the affectively negative condition, whereas the speech of the parents did not. These results support the idea that referential communication disturbances reflect vulnerability, as well as overt illness, but that affective reactivity of these disturbances is associated mainly with the manifest illness. These findings are consistent with biological, cognitive, and psychological theories about the processes underlying stress responsiveness of schizophrenic symptoms more generally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Rorschach comparison of psychopathic and nonpsychopathic conduct disordered adolescents

Forty-eight male subjects who met the DSM-IV (APA, 1994) criteria for conduct disorder (CD) were assessed for psychopathy level using a modified version of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R, Forth, Hart, & Hare, 1990). Rorschach variables associated with self-perception, affects, and object relations, early behavioral problems and history of violence were compared between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic CD adolescents. Psychopathic CD subjects were significantly more self-centered and violent than nonpsychopathic CD subjects. Decreased attachment and anxiety were found in both CD groups. Our study adds empirical support to the heterogeneity noted among CD adolescents (PCL-R), supports the utility of the Rorschach for detecting individual differences among CD subjects, and extends the empirical work of Gacono and Meloy (1994) to adolescent psychopathy.     

Premorbid social competence and psychiatric outcome in male and female nonschizophrenic patients.

In 228 male and 220 female 1st-admission state-hospital patients with affective disorders, neuroses, and personality disorders, higher social competence was related to more favorable outcome as reflected in shorter initial hospitalizations and shorter rehospitalizations. Consistent with a developmental formulation and the results of a previous study by the 2nd and 1st authors and A. Marsh (1979), results provide further evidence that the relation between premorbid competence and outcome is not unique to schizophrenia but can be found for patients of both sexes across a range of diagnoses. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The Rorschach and Holtzman as Measures of Pathognomic Verbalization": Erratum.

Reports an error in the article, "The Rorschach and Holtzman as Measures of Pathognomic Verbalization" by Leighton Whitaker in the April 1965 issue of the Journal of Consulting Psychology. A corrected version of the sentence on page 182, 15 lines from the bottom of the right-hand column is given. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1965-10275-001). This study was planned to obtain information about the reliability of Rorschach and Holtzman pathognomic verbalization scores (V). The Rorschach and Holtzman protocols of 45 psychiatric patients were scored by scorer A and 19 of the Holtzman protocols were scored "blind" by scorer B. Holtzman interscorer reliability was .81 (p     

"MMPI and Rorschach: Three decades of research": A time series reanalysis.

Reanalyzed the results concerning the yearly analysis of references to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach test in Psychological Abstracts from 1950 to 1985 obtained by J. Polyson et al (see record 1987-02840-001), using the auto-regressive integrated moving average model. Findings of the reanalysis reveal a problem with the Polyson et al study, because the sample data did not meet the assumptions of the inferential procedures associated with the t-test and Pearson product-moment r. It is maintained that the number of publications in a given year for either measure did not influence the number of publications for the other measure in any subsequent year. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Opposite speech" in a schizophrenic patient.

"An unusual speech syndrome of a schizophrenic patient, in which "yes" and "no" and other opposites are reversed without awareness on the part of the patient, has been described. In discussion the reversal of a strongly established linguistic discrimination, it was pointed out that learning theorists have largely neglected the study of pathological language… . Evidence was offered to support the view that the opposite speech of the patient served primarily as a means of coping with hostile impulses." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychotic experience and disordered thinking: a reappraisal from new perspectives

The reports of a person suffering from loose associations and disordered behavior serve as the basis for a phenomenology of some central components of psychotic experience. Especially salient are "the expansion of the horizon of meanings," "the emergence of explicit experiences from implicit ones," and "the reduction of complexity." The phenomenological concepts thus developed supplement recent discoveries in neuroscience and experimental psychopathology. Cognitive neuroscientists have depicted the surface of the brain as a repository of self-organizing cortical maps of mental life. Furthermore, experimental psychopathologists have characterized semantic associative networks in normal experience and in psychosis. The authors conclude by joining the phenomenology of psychotic consciousness with the findings of these neuroscientists and experimental psychopathologists.     

Shape constancy in schizophrenic patients.

Shape constancy in visual perception of schizophrenic patients was studied. 40 chronic schizophrenic, 40 acute schizophrenic, 40 nonschizophrenic mental patients, and 40 normal controls were used as Ss. Ss matched the shape of a standard object (circle) inclined at an angle. 2 angles of inclination, 30° and 60°, were used. It was found that shape constancy was lower in schizophrenic patients than in controls when the stimulus object was inclined 60° from the horizontal plane. When the angle of inclination was 30° there was no difference between the groups. The chronic schizophrenic patients displayed greater response variability than the other groups. The relation of these findings to the theory of assimilation of percepts to the perceptual schemata in schizophrenic patients was discussed. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reducing ambiguity: semantic statistical studies of "normal" probands, neurotic patients, borderline patients and schizophrenic patients

The present study tries to answer three questions: 1.) Do patients with neurotic disorders differ from normals by a stronger tendency to avoid or reduce ambiguity? 2.) Does the tendency to avoid or reduce ambiguity increase with increasing ambiguity of the stimulus? 3.) Does the avoidance or reduction of ambiguity increase with affects of anxiety and hostility? In order to answer these questions, Ertel's dogmatism-dictionary was applied to the answers of 30 normals, 30 patients with neurotic disorders, 30 borderline-patients, 25 acute and 25 chronic schizophrenics in the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (HIT). According to the results, (1) patients with neurotic disorders do not differ from normals by a stronger tendency to avoid or reduce ambiguity. 2.) The tendency to avoid or reduce ambiguity increases with measures of increasing stimulus ambiguity of the HIT cards in all diagnostic groups studied with the exception of chronic schizophrenics. As far as response ambiguity (variability of interpretation) is concerned, only in chronic schizophrenics the tendency to avoid or reduce ambiguity decreases with increasing response ambiguity. 3.) The avoidance or reduction of ambiguity increases with affects of anxiety and/or aggression assessed by HIT-measures in all diagnostic groups studied with the exception of normals and chronic schizophrenics. In both normals and chronic schizophrenics, the reduction of ambiguity decreases significantly with increasing anxiety, in chronic schizophrenics the reduction of ambiguity decreases significantly with an increase of low levels of aggression.