Some verbal aspects of primary process thought in schizophrenia.

"On the basis of the psychoanalytic concept of primary process, it was predicted that schizophrenics would show a greater tendency than normals to treat both antonyms and homonyms as synonyms. The instrument used was a multiple-choice paper-and-pencil test. Each item required the subject to select a synonym from among three alternatives, a synonym, either an antonym or a homonym, and a third word which was neither… . The schizophrenics exceeded the normal subjects on this corrected score for both the antonym task and the homonym task. A possible non-Freudian interpretation of the data in terms of learning theory generalization is discussed." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3JQ55B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Language production and thought disorder in schizophrenia.

The authors examined the relationship between language production (LP) processes and thought disorder. Thirty-nine schizophrenic or schizoaffective participants completed tasks measuring discourse planning, monitoring, and grammatical–phonological encoding, as well as an interview used to rate thought disorder. The authors found that different LP processes were differentially related to different thought disorder subtypes. Incompetent references were strongly and selectively related to discourse planning performance. In addition, word approximations–neologisms were strongly and specifically associated with grammatical–phonological encoding performance. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for understanding the multifaceted nature and etiology of thought disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The differential functions of imagery and verbal thought in insomnia.

Individuals with insomnia were exposed to a stressor (speech threat) prior to getting into bed and were instructed to think about the speech and its implications in either images (Image group, n = 14) or verbal thought (Verbal group, n = 17). Participants completed questionnaires about speech anxiety, arousal, and sense of resolution. Measures were taken of subjective (sleep diary estimates) and objective (actigraphy) sleep-onset latency. In the short term, the Image group reported more distress and arousal relative to those in the Verbal group. In the longer term, the Image group estimated that they fell asleep more quickly and, the following morning, reported less anxiety and more comfort about giving the speech compared with the Verbal group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Heterogeneity of auditory verbal working memory in schizophrenia.

The heterogeneity of schizophrenia remains an obstacle for understanding its pathophysiology. Studies using a tone discrimination screening test to classify patients have found evidence for 2 subgroups having either a specific deficit in verbal working memory (WM) or deficits in both verbal and nonverbal memory. This study aimed to (a) replicate in larger samples differences between these subgroups in auditory verbal WM; (b) evaluate their performance on tests of explicit memory and sustained attention; (c) determine the relation of verbal WM deficits to auditory hallucinations and other symptoms; and (d) examine medication effects. The verbal WM and tone discrimination performance did not differ between medicated (n = 45) and unmedicated (n = 38) patients. Patients with schizophrenia who passed the tone screening test (discriminators; n = 60) were compared with those who did not (nondiscriminators; n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 47). The discriminator subgroup showed poorer verbal WM than did controls and a deficit in verbal but not visual memory on the Wechsler Memory Scale–Revised (Wechsler, 1987), whereas the nondiscriminator subgroup showed overall poorer performance on both verbal and nonverbal tests and a marked deficit in sustained attention. Verbal WM deficits in discriminators were correlated with auditory hallucinations but not with negative symptoms. The results are consistent with a verbal memory deficit in a subgroup of schizophrenia having intact auditory perception, which may stem from dysfunction of language-related cortical regions, and a more generalized cognitive deficit in a subgroup having auditory perceptual and attentional dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental language and verbal responsiveness to children in crowded homes.

This article is a secondary data analysis of the University of Kansas Language Acquisition Project, which intensively studied, on a regular basis, parent and child language from age 6 months to 30 months. The association between residential density and parent–child speech was examined. Parents in crowded homes speak in less complex, sophisticated ways with their children compared with parents in uncrowded homes, and this association is mediated by parental responsiveness. Parents in more crowded homes are less verbally responsive to their children. This in turn accounts for their simpler, less sophisticated speech to their children. This mediational pathway is evident with statistical controls for socioeconomic status. This model may help explain prior findings showing a link between residential crowding and delayed cognitive development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between formal thought disorder and retardation in schizophrenia.

17 schizophrenics admitted into the hospital less than 6 mo before were compared on Bannister's Grid Test of Schizophrenic Thought Disorder with 19 schizophrenics admitted over 6 mo before and with a group of 17 nonschizophrenic, psychiatric controls under 3 conditions: fast rate of responding, slow rate of responding, and in-between rate of responding. It was predicted that the schizophrenics would show more thought disorder under fast than slow conditions and that the recently admitted schizophrenics would be more thought disordered than the earlier admitted schizophrenics. Contrary to expectations, the patients tended to show less thought disorder on the test when their responses were speeded than when they were encouraged to take their time. Moreover, the earlier admitted schizophrenics showed more thought disorder than the recently admitted schizophrenics under all 3 conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of phenothiazine on disordered thought in schizophrenia.

Using a counterbalanced design, 24 male chronic schizophrenics were tested both while receiving phenothiazine therapy and while off drugs. The test used was a conceptual one which permitted measures of 3 kinds of errors, errors resulting from excessively broad interpretation of common concepts, errors resulting from excessively narrow interpretation of common concepts, and random errors which reflect lack of alertness and a drop in intellectual efficiency. Phenothiazine therapy reduced errors of excessive breadth of concepts (p     

Stability of formal thought disorder and referential communication disturbances in schizophrenia.

This study examined the degree to which different types of communication disturbances in the speech of 48 schizophrenia patients and 28 controls were variable and state related versus stable and traitlike. Clinically rated formal thought disorder and 5 types of referential disturbance showed substantial stability within participants over time. The sixth type of referential disturbance, the vague reference, was not stable over time. Formal thought disorder was associated with the severity of core psychotic symptoms in patients, whereas referential disturbances showed little or no association with positive or negative symptom severity. Furthermore, changes in psychotic symptoms over time were accompanied by corresponding changes in formal thought disorder but not referential disturbances. These results support the idea that some types of referential disturbances are traitlike and may be reflective of vulnerability as well as manifest illness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual and verbal metaphors among children with typical language and language disorders

Twelve children with language disorders and 12 control subjects were presented with a series of 24 photographic plates from the Metaphoric Triads Test and asked to explain all possible pairings. They also performed a similar task, matched for content, using verbally prepared stimuli. For each trial, one pairing had been designed to make highly probable a metaphoric pairing. Control subjects provided significantly more metaphoric accounts of pairings than children with language disorders, regardless of modality. In addition, photographic plates elicited significantly more metaphoric pairings than verbal preparations. No significant interactions were observed. The findings are discussed from the perspectives of (1) generalized symbolic function and (2) verbal mediation function. The authors call for more research on the role of verbal mediation in metaphoric reasoning.     

ERP assessment of visual and auditory language processing in schizophrenia.

Language disturbance in schizophrenia has been recently attributed to disturbed priming mechanisms. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs), were recorded to final words in sentences presented to 13 chronic patients with schizophrenia and 12 normal controls. Half of the final words fit a sentence context and another half did not. The N400 (the ERP sensitive to language) latency was prolonged, and its amplitude was more negative to both correct and incorrect sentence endings in the group with schizophrenia relative to the group of normal controls. The early ERP components, N100 and P200, were similar in both groups. These results suggest that language abnormalities in schizophrenia are related to a dysfunction in the language system and not to a general cognitive dysfunction, and may be related to poor use of context in patients with schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organization of language behavior and cognitive performance in chronic schizophrenia.

Reports data from 10 31-51 yr old chronic schizophrenic patients which relate formal categories of language behavior to performance on the Stroop Color-Word Interference Test--a task of verbal encoding under distracting and nondistracting conditions. The data show that the most simple type of language behavior is related to difficulty in verbal articulation and verbal encoding on the Stroop task. More complex language behavior, utilizing a conditional framework to express ideas, is related to increased interference from the distracting verbal text. Data are discussed in terms of attention regulation in chronic schizophrenia, and a speculation is offered regarding the role of attention in language development. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Existential interpretations of some aspects of schizophrenia.

Reviews some basic concepts of existentialism (aloneness, choice, freedom, action, responsibility, and desire), and discusses their conceptual interrelatedness. Experiential theories of the etiology of schizophrenia are then briefly examined and viewed through the existential framework. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance of schizophrenia and bipolar patients on verbal and figural working memory tasks.

Working memory (WM) was studied in 82 healthy volunteers, 43 schizophrenia patients, and 81 bipolar patients. Schizophrenia patients were impaired on verbal and figural WM tasks that possessed similar test discriminating power. Bipolar patients performed similarly to healthy volunteers. A mathematical model of WM performance revealed a primary role for reduced WM span in accounting for the impaired verbal WM of schizophrenia patients and a primary role for diminished attention in accounting for impaired figural WM. Although WM impairment in schizophrenia is due neither to the general effects of severe mental illness nor to the specific type of material studied, the microarchitecture of abnormal WM in schizophrenia may depend on the stimulus material presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers and two-year-olds: A study of sex-differentiated aspects of verbal interaction.

12 White, upper-middle-class, English-speaking mothers and their 2-yr-old children (6 male, 6 female) were studied in a spontaneous play situation. The mean differences for mother-male compared with mother-female dyads on 12 measures of quantitative and qualitative aspects of speech showed mothers of female children talked more, asked more questions, repeated their children's utterances more often, and used longer utterances compared with mothers of male children. Mothers of male children used more directives compared with mothers of female children. Results suggest a continuity of a similar pattern of greater verbal quantity and responsivity for mother-female compared with mother-male dyads. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive impairments associated with formal thought disorder in people with schizophrenia.

Formal thought disorder (FTD), or disorganized speech, is one of the central signs of schizophrenia. Despite extensive research, the cognitive processes associated with FTD are still unclear. However, the authors' review of FTD theories and research indicates that considerable progress has been made in identifying possible cognitive impairments associated with FTD. Specifically, FTD is strongly associated with impaired executive functioning and with impaired processing of semantic information. Their review indicates that previous research has not yet supported an association between FTD and either an increase in spreading activation or an impairment within the language production system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does risperidone improve verbal working memory in treatment-resistant schizophrenia?

OBJECTIVE: Treatment efficacy in schizophrenia is typically defined in terms of symptom reduction. However, new antipsychotic medications could potentially have an impact on aspects of disability, such as neurocognitive deficits. The authors evaluated the effects of risperidone on verbal working memory, a memory component of theoretical interest because of its link to prefrontal activity and of practical interest because of its link to psychosocial rehabilitation. METHOD: Verbal working memory of 59 treatment-resistant schizophrenic patients was assessed as part of a randomized, double-blind comparison of treatment with risperidone and haloperidol. Verbal working memory was measured under both distracting and nondistracting conditions at baseline and after 4 weeks of both fixed- and flexible-dose pharmacotherapy. RESULTS: Risperidone treatment had a greater beneficial effect on verbal working memory than haloperidol treatment across testing conditions (with and without distraction) and study phases (fixed and flexible dose). The treatment effect remained significant after the effects of benztropine cotreatment, change in psychotic symptoms, and change in negative symptoms were controlled. Neither benztropine status nor symptom changes were significantly related to memory performance. CONCLUSIONS: Treatment with risperidone appears to exert a more favorable effect on verbal working memory than treatment with a conventional neuroleptic. The beneficial effect appears to be due, at least partially, to a direct effect of the drug, possibly through antagonism of the 5-HT2A receptor. Results from this study suggest that pharmacotherapeutic efficacy in schizophrenia treatment could be broadened to include impact on neurocognitive abilities.     

Affective reactivity of language symptoms, startle responding, and inhibition in schizophrenia.

The speech of some schizophrenia patients becomes markedly more disordered when negative affect is aroused. The authors tested associations between affective reactivity of speech and responsiveness and inhibition on an acoustic startle task in a sample of 27 outpatients. Patients whose language was reactive to negative affect showed significantly higher initial startle amplitudes than those whose language was not reactive. However, they also showed greater habituation to repeated startle stimuli over trials, even after differences in initial amplitudes were controlled statistically. These findings suggest that affective reactivity of speech is associated with higher initial startle responsiveness but also with greater habituation and, conversely, that patients who are relatively nonreactive to excitatory affective and sensory stimuli are also less reactive to inhibitory input. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crystallized verbal skills in schizophrenia: Relationship to neurocognition, symptoms, and functional status.

Objective: To study the relationship of superior (i.e., ≥ 90th percentile), average (11th?89th percentile) or extremely low (i.e., ≤ 10th percentile) crystallized verbal skills to neurocognitive profiles, symptoms and everyday life function in schizophrenia. Method: Crystallized verbal skill was derived from Vocabulary subtest scores from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Out of a sample of 165 stable outpatients with schizophrenia we identified 25 participants with superior crystallized verbal skill, 104 participants with average verbal skill, and 36 participants with extremely low crystallized verbal skill. Each participant was administered measures of attention, working memory, verbal learning and memory, problem-solving and processing speed, as well as symptom and performance-based adaptive life skill assessments. Results: The magnitude of neuropsychological impairment across the three groups was different, after adjusting for group differences in education and duration of illness. Working memory, and verbal learning and memory skills were different across all three groups, while processing speed differentiated the extremely low verbal skill group from the other two groups and problem-solving differentiated the very low verbal skill group from the superior verbal skill group. There were no group differences in sustained attention. Capacity measures of everyday life skills were different across each of the three groups. Conclusion: Crystallized verbal skill in schizophrenia is related to the magnitude of impairment in neurocognitive function and performance-based skills in everyday life function. Patterns of neuropsychological impairment were similar across different levels of crystallized verbal skill. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudinal and cognitive aspects of intensive study of a second language.

Students attending a 6-week French Summer School were examined for attitudes toward French people and culture, their orientations toward learning a 2nd language, and their feelings of anomie at the start and end of the course. Attention was also given to modification in the meanings of French and translated-equivalent English concepts. Students at 2 levels of skill in French were compared. Results supported the theory that learning a 2nd language efficiently depends on an appropriate pattern of attitudes toward the other cultural group and a particular orientation toward language study. Anomie increased for both groups of students during the course. Students utilized the semantic features of both their languages and permitted the 2 to interact. This linguistic interdependence correlates positively with achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Two studies on the language behavior of schizophrenics.

Tested L. J. Chapman's hypothesis that contextual constraints are less salient, and stronger meaning constraints more salient for schizophrenics than for normals, as was the hypothesis drawn from the works of K. Salzinger and of R. L. Cromwell and P. R. Dokecki that schizophrenics are overly constrained by immediate cues relative to distant ones. Ss were 3 groups of males at a VA hospital: 25 normal controls, staff members; 22 hospitalized controls, nonschizophrenic patients; and 71 schizophrenics. The Chapman hypothesis was supported only for disorganized schizophrenics and only when the ambiguous element being considered was lexical. The immediacy hypothesis was supported with regard to semantic constraints. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)