Abstract
This paper demonstrates the utilization of a new technique for the study of schizophrenic thinking. 48 hospitalized schizophrenics were confronted with tasks which required inferences to be made on the basis of cues having uncertain relationships with a criterion. The tasks varied according to the number of cues which must be effectively utilized and were presented by means of both impersonal and socially-relevant stimuli. The results indicated that schizophrenics function as well as normals on impersonal tasks in which the use of limited cues is required. Their performance is increasingly impaired as more cues must be effectively integrated, and their functioning on tasks with interpersonal relevance is uniformly inadequate. Normals function with equal adequacy on impersonal and socially-relevant tasks regardless of the range of cues which must be utilized.
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This study was carried out while the author was a research fellow of National Institute of Mental Health, United States Public Health Service. The author wishes to thank K. R. Hammond, M. E. Lipetz, and P. G. Ossorio for their assistance in the investigation. This paper is a publication of the Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado.
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Gillis, J.S. Schizophrenic Thinking in a Probabilistic Situation. Psychol Rec 19, 211–224 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393845
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393845