Formation of concepts of varying degrees of dominance by process and reactive schizophrenics.

Compared the performances of 20 process and 21 reactive male schizophrenics on a concept-formation task involving 3 levels of concept dominance. Concept dominance was determined by high, moderate, and low associative strength of the correct responses to the stimuli. Strength and frequency of incorrect competing responses varied inversely with the associative strength of the correct responses. Findings reveal a significant main effect for concept dominance and a significant Diagnosis * Concept Dominance interaction. Reactive schizophrenics performed significantly better than process schizophrenics when concept dominance was high (i.e., few weak competing responses), whereas there was a trend for process schizophrenics to perform better when concept dominance was low (i.e., many strong competing responses). Methodological implications are discussed in detail. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)