[Word association and schizophrenia--an empirical study]

Since Bleuler's (1911) work on dementia praecox, numerous studies on associative disturbances in schizophrenics have been published. Methodological flaws and difficulties in interpreting the disturbances consistently have brought about a certain dilemma: they are unanimously considered a basic disorder in schizophrenia, but the problem of their reliable evaluation has remained unanswered. 43 schizophrenics, 15 affective psychotics, and 46 normals were investigated in order to compare different forms of the word association test (WAT). The schizophrenics gave less common responses than the normals in the free association task. However, the two groups differed more widely in their performance when asked to respond "individually", "commonly", or using a multiple-choice associative test. The affective psychotics were similar in their response behaviour, partly to the schizophrenics (free and common response conditions; multiple-choice test), partly to the normals (individual response condition). The relationship of the WAT to personality characteristics (Eysenck's psychoticism), the influence of psychopathology and the course of the disease, the patients' well-being and self-report of speech and thought disorders are discussed.