Size estimation, perceptual recognition, and cardiac rate response in acute paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics.

Studied perceptual response styles of 8 paranoid and 8 nonparanoid schizophrenics in a VA hospital using size estimation and perceptual recognition tasks. Eight alcoholic patients were used as controls. Only acute, actively psychotic, unmedicated schizophrenics were included. Heart rate responses were monitored during the performance of the tasks. Psychological task performance and concomitant physiological responses were analyzed and integrated. The size estimation results replicate earlier findings. During the perceptual recognition task, the paranoid Ss showed a unique "jump to conclusions" response strategy. Early responding and response rigidity was not found to be specific to paranoid schizophrenics. All schizophrenic Ss showed more large-magnitude heart rate response during both tasks. The relationship between perceptual responses and physiological responses differed among the groups. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Schizophrenia and the scanning cognitive control: A reevaluation.

In recent studies it has been inferred from performance on perceptual tasks, that paranoid schizophrenics showed extensive scanning and nonparanoid schizophrenics showed minimal scanning. Eye movements during free-search and size-judgment tasks were recorded for 14 paranoid and 14 nonparanoid schizophrenics, 14 psychotic depressives, and 14 control Ss. Medicated Ss showed lower eyemovement rate and fixation rate than nonmedicated Ss and controls, but there were no significant differences due to schizophrenia. There was a significant interaction between patient type and medication for size-judgment means, but all such differences were reduced to nonsignificance by training. Even after training, Ss showed greater variability in size judgments than controls. Results failed to support the notion of extensive or minimal scanning behavior of schizophrenics. Errors by the psychotic patients in making size judgments were not correlated with scanning behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance of paranoid schizophrenics on a dichotic listening task.

Used 15 adult normals and 15 institutionalized paranoid schizophrenics in a dichotic listening task within a 2 (Groups) * 2 (Associated or Unassociated Word List) * 2 (Presentation Rate) design, with repeated measures on the last 2 variables. Presentation rates were either 1 or 3 sec. Dependent variables were word recall, intrusion errors, and strategy use and accuracy. Normals recalled significantly more information than paranoid schizophrenics under all memory conditions and had significantly fewer total intrusion errors. For both groups, information recall was significantly better under the associative conditions (particularly associative structure, 3-sec presentation rate). Under the varying structure conditions, paranoid schizophrenics did not employ optimal strategies with the same frequency or degree of accuracy as normals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Left hemisphere dysfunction and left hemisphere overactivation in schizophrenia.

Reports 2 experiments relating schizophrenia to functional brain asymmetry. In Exp I, 24 schizophrenics (mean age, 30.8 yrs) were compared to 24 matched controls (mean age, 37.3 yrs) on 2 tachistoscopic tasks (Syllable Test and Dot Location Test) designed to measure verbal and spatial information processing in the 2 hemispheres. Unlike the controls, the schizophrenics showed a right hemisphere superiority both on the verbal and on the spatial tests, indicating left hemisphere dysfunction in the initial processing of verbal information. In Exp II, lateral eye movements, as an index of contralateral hemispheric activation, were measured in a group of 24 paranoid schizophrenics (mean age, 28.9 yrs), 24 nonparanoid schizophrenics (mean age, 32.7 yrs), and 24 matched controls (mean age, 31.2 yrs). The eye movements were elicited by presenting the Ss with verbal neutral, verbal emotional, spatial neutral, and spatial emotional questions. The schizophrenics had significantly more rightward eye movement, compared to controls, regardless of question type, indicating left hemisphere overactivation. Results suggest that schizophrenia is associated with a pattern consisting of both left hemisphere dysfunction and overactivation. (63 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

John M. Neale.

Announces John M. Neale as a recipient of the 1974 Early Career Award, and presents his biography and list of scientific publications. For his investigations of information processing and the role of perceptual factors in process and reactive schizophrenia. His series of investigations of adult schizophrenia, including studies on size estimation, preference for visual complexity, span of apprehension, reaction time, premorbid adjustment, two-flash threshold, and the assessment of paranoid systems, are characterized by their careful execution and varied methodologies. The results of these investigations, done in collaboration with Rue Cromwell, helped to clarify the variations in size estimation characteristic of process and reactive schizophrenics, indicated the importance of anticipatory reaction time responses in discriminating schizophrenic from normal performance, and suggested the role of full versus partial report in span of apprehension tasks. Currently, he is vigorously pursuing a program of research on children at risk for schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Number and position of visual stimuli as determinants of reaction time in schizophrenia.

Notes that RT in normal Ss has been shown to be linearly related to stimulus complexity, defined as the log of the number of equally probable stimuli to which a response may be made. Data from an earlier study of 40 short- and long-term paranoid and nonparanoid male schizophrenics and 10 male hospital employees were reanalyzed and compared with P. Venable's (see record 1959-10789-001) study of schizophrenic deficit. Although experimental procedures were dissimilar, both studies found that increased complexity did not result in schizophrenics having steeper regression slopes than normal Ss. Consideration of the position of the critical stimulus, however, clearly indicated that long-term, nonparanoid schizophrenics narrow attention to central cues when confronted by an increase in complexity. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multidimensional scaling analysis of schizophrenics' and normals' perceptions of verbal similarity.

Compared the judgments of similarity of words by 14 paranoid and 14 nonparanoid schizophrenics (mean ages, 29.43 and 30.64 yrs, respectively) with those by 14 normals (mean age, 32.79 yrs). The judgments were analyzed using an individual-differences multidimensional scaling procedure. A greater judgmental consistency was obtained among the normals than among the paranoid schizophrenics and larger differences among stimulus dimensions, in their contributions to predictable judgmental variance, were obtained for the normals as compared with the schizophrenics, especially the paranoid schizophrenics. Stimulus dimensions resembling the potency, activity, and evaluative dimensions of the semantic differential were less influential in the judgments of the schizophrenics, especially those classified as paranoid, than in the judgments of the normals. Results are discussed in terms of overinclusiveness among schizophrenics in multidimensional similarity judgments, as well as in terms of the potential importance to schizophrenics' deficiencies in semantic interpretations of the reduced influence of relevant dimensions of meaning. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short-term retention in acute and chronic paranoid schizophrenics.

Administered 4 short-term memory tasks to 10 acute and 10 chronic paranoid schizophrenics (age ranges 17-45 and 21-58, respectively) and 10 18-54 yr old nonprofessional hospital staff members. Each task involved the recall of a different type of material varying in meaningfulness from letter trigrams to real word triads. Recall of the material always followed 15 sec of distracting activity designed to prevent rehearsal. Acute paranoid Ss tended to overinclude intralist and extralist responses especially when the more meaningful material was used, while the chronic Ss tended to omit many more responses (p     

Preference for complexity in acute schizophrenics.

Employed a paired comparisons scaling technique to assess the preference of schizophrenics for varying quantities of information as presented in geometric forms. Both good premorbid paranoid and poor premorbid nonparanoid schizophrenics showed their greatest preference for the least complex shapes. Results are discussed in terms of H. Munsinger and W. Kessen's (see 39:2) conception of a match between preference for environmental information and input-processing capacity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impairment in abstract responses of schizophrenics, neurotics, and brain-damaged patients

Attempted to identify a deficit in information input that may be specific to schizophrenia. The Ss were 60 male 19–58 yr old veterans representing 5 groups of 12 each: normals, neurotics, paranoid schizophrenics, nonparanoid schizophrenics, and brain-damaged patients. In the present and previous studies scores on single- and multiple-proverbs tests were analyzed to show effects of stimulus enrichment and practice gain in identifying this deficit. Previous studies differentiate normals and schizophrenics, demonstrate the deficit over a range of schizophrenic severity, and show that the deficit is independent of general loss of competence. Results of the present study indicate that the deficit is present over the paranoid–nonparanoid continuum; that it is absent in normals, neurotics, and brain-damaged patients; and that it is not a function of such intellectual factors as education and vocabulary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reality testing by schizophrenics.

Compared 15 schizophrenics with 15 controls of similar mental test status and educational background on 2 classes of elementary problems from a series of artifact testing tasks monitored by an automatic problem programing machine called the Heuristic Evaluation Problem Programmer. In terms of an index that reflects the ability to conduct the required inquiry efficiently, the groups did not differ significantly on statistical tests that employed between-Ss differences as the error variance. Repeated measures of group differences showed a small, but statistically significant, superiority for the control Ss. Intercorrelations between scores on various problem sets indicated that the tests were reliable. During the 1st 3/4 of the problem series, there was a marked inefficiency of performance in a small group of paranoid schizophrenics as compared with a group of chronic undifferentiated schizophrenics. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Encoding of taxonomic word categories by schizophrenics

Administered to 20 chronic, undifferentiated schizophrenics and 20 paranoid schizophrenic controls the release-from-proactive-interference procedure as developed by D. D. Wickens. Word triads representing 8 conceptual categories were the to-be-remembered stimuli. Proactive interference release was clearly established for both schizophrenic subgroups. These findings are interpreted to imply that chronic, undifferentiated schizophrenics as well as paranoid schizophrenics encode the attributes of conceptual word class in memory. Previous failures of chronic schizophrenics to benefit from categorized to-be-remembered materials in recall tests are probably not the result of an encoding deficiency. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some determinants of persistence in chronic schizophrenic subjects.

This investigation of persistence in schizophrenics on tasks differing in complexity and interest under ego-involved and task-oriented conditions utilized 3 groups of male schizophrenics: 30 well-adjusted and 30 poorly-adjusted out-patients, and 30 regressed hospitalized patients. Each S worked at 1 of 3 tasks representing low, moderate, and high degrees of interest and complexity. ? of each group received ego-involved and ? received task-oriented instructions. Outpatient schizozphrenics were clearly superior to hospitalized patients in persistence. Persistence was greater under ego-involved than under task-oriented conditions, regardless of task or level of psychopathology, but there was no difference in persistence scores across tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual and memory search by process schizophrenics.

Compared the response times (RTs) of 20 process schizophrenics (10 paranoid and 10 nonparanoid) and 20 nonhospitalized controls (mean ages 39.2, 30.0, and 34.1 yrs, respectively) on a hybrid visual and memory search task in which Ss searched displays of up to 15 letters, reporting whether or not displays contained a target, which in different conditions was drawn from a memorized set of 1, 3, or 6 letters. RTs of all groups increased linearly with the product of the number in the memorized target set and the number of displayed letters. Although the intercepts and RTs of the schizophrenics (there were no paranoid–nonparanoid differences) exceeded those of controls, no group differences were found in slopes or in rates of increase in RT as a function of the number of memorized or displayed items. Results are interpreted in terms of a model proposed by W. Schneider and R. M. Shiffrin (1977), which indicates that process schizophrenics are retarded in processes associated with response production but not in a variety of processing stages involved in the comparison of displayed and memorized information. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of competing and complex responses on the reaction time of acute psychiatric groups.

Compared 8 acute nonparanoid schizophrenics to 12 depressed and 29 nonpsychotic psychiatric controls (age range = 18-41 yrs) to determine if schizophrenic deficit on 4 auditory reaction time tasks was a function of slower rate of processing information. The tasks varied along the dimensions of complexity (simple vs 2-choice) and competition (low vs high). It was hypothesized that slower processing rate implied slower reaction time on the simple tasks and greater slowing down on the complex tasks. Some Ss in each group were tested 2 times to determine the relative stability of the deficit. Essentially, for both testing sessions schizophrenics were slower than both control groups on all 4 tasks. However, they slowed down more than the nonpsychotic group only on the complex task with high competition. The depressed group, which performed like the nonpsychotic group on the 3 other tasks, also slowed down more than the nonpsychotic group on this task, but only on the 1st testing session. It is concluded that schizophrenic deficit was stable and did not arise primarily from slower rate of processing data, although interference might have augmented it. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responsiveness of chronic schizophrenics and normals to social and nonsocial feedback.

This is an investigation of the effect upon learning (of a psychomotor task: depressing a bar in accord with a repetitive double alternation pattern) of feedback on performance from a human being or from a panel of lights in a population of schizophrenics as compared to hospitalized nonpsychiatric patients. It was anticipated that when the feedback was from the human, the schizophrenic would not be able to profit as much from the information as compared to the normals, and that paranoid schizophrenics would profit more than nonparanoid schizophrenics. In general, the hypotheses were supported. The results are discussed as to their theoretical implications. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3JQ06J. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reduced range of sensory sensitivity in chronic nonparanoid schizophrenics.

Used a forced-choice auditory signal-detection method to test the hypothesis that, compared to acute paranoid schizophrenics, chronic nonparanoid schizophrenics would show a restricted range of sensitivity to environmental cues. 40 male chronic nonparanoid and paranoid schizophrenics served as Ss. Ability to detect the presence of an auditory cue, while concurrently tracking a visual stimulus, was measured under 2 conditions, auditory monitoring being given primary or secondary importance. In this task, a narrowed range of sensitivity implies a greater deficit in ability to detect the auditory cue when the primary focus is placed elsewhere. This deficit was significantly greater in the chronics in both initial and replication experiments. The function of restricted sensitivity in limiting the range of both relevant and distracting stimuli that are responded to by chronic nonparanoid schizophrenics is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Praise and censure as motivating variables in the motor behavior and learning of schizophrenics.

Hullian assumptions regarding drive level were utilized to predict the performance of acute and chronic schizophrenics on learning tasks of varying complexity. Ss were exposed to 3 conditions of reinforcement: censure, praise, and neutral (neither censure nor praise), and faced with simple and complex learning tasks. Acute schizophrenics responded differently from the chronic Ss to the conditions of reinforcement. The performance of the acute group was facilitated on the 2nd task by the experience of being told they were wrong on the 1st; this was not so with the chronic schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disappearance of paranoid symptoms with chronicity.

Investigated the finding of a reduced proportion of paranoids in chronic samples. Whether this change is due to the disappearance of paranoid patients or of paranoid symptomatology is unclear. Data from 50 multi-admitted paranoid schizophrenics firmly support the notion that paranoid symptomatology disappears. Although half of the patients remained paranoid across 10 yrs of illness, the other half changed to nonparanoid status around the 3rd hospitalization and about 6 yrs after 1st admission. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)