Psychophysiological reactions to films by chronic schizophrenics: II. Individual differences in resting levels and reactivity.

Resting skin-resistance, heart-rate, and reactivity data to 1 of 2 tension-arousing films were obtained from 2 normal comparison groups and a sample of drug-free chronic schizophrenics. The schizophrenics were subdivided into 3 subsamples on the basis of the number of deviant associations given to a word-association test. The resting skin-resistance data failed to discriminate between normals and schizophrenics; however, meaningful differences were found among the schizophrenic subsamples such that increasing thought disturbance was associated with increasing basal resistance levels. Basal heart-rate data did indicate faster heart rate for all schizophrenic subsamples compared with both normal groups. Reactivity data also indicated different results for the 2 indexes. Skin-resistance indexes failed to indicate any differences between schizophrenics and normals or among the schizophrenic samples. 1 heart-rate index suggested less reactivity for schizophrenics than for normals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)