Impairment in early stages of visual information processing in nonpsychotic schizotypic individuals.

Investigated the perceptual functioning of individuals whose MMPI-168 profiles indicated schizophrenic tendencies but who did not exhibit marked thought disorder. The MMPI 2-7-8 code type was used to identify these 15 Ss from a pool of 909 college students. This group was compared on a backward visual masking task with 2 control groups: (a) 14 Ss whose profiles were inflation free and (b) 11 Ss whose profiles showed elevations on any 2 scales except the Sc. Critical interstimulus interval (ISI) was used as the dependent measure. The 2-7-8 group required significantly longer critical ISI to recognize target letters than did the inflation-free group. Regression analysis showed that for the group that showed inflations on any 2 scales except Sc, Sc was a significant predictor of critical ISI. It is concluded that a deficit exists at a very early stage in the visual information processing system of the 2-7-8 group. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)