Time perception and conflict arousal in schizophrenia.

The hypothesis that schizophrenics would exhibit greater distortion in estimation of duration time for stimuli relevant to their major conflicts than for other stimuli was investigated. 3 groups, each with 16 Ss who were homogeneous with respect to experiencing primary conflicts with either aggression, sex, or dependency, were formed. A factorial Latin square design was used in which Ss estimated stimuli durations following the tachistoscopic presentation at 4 exposure times of 4 pictorial stimuli, 1 of which represented their major conflict area. Results demonstrated that greatest distortions occurred for conflict pictures at the .001 level. Distortion elicitation of the aggression stimulus was greater than other stimuli at .001 for the combined schizophrenics, an effect not found with normal control Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)