Simultaneous Processing Of Multiple Stimulus Dimensions Among Paranoid And Nonparanoid Schizophrenics

In the first study, paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics and normals made dichotamous conceptual judgments about multidimensional visual stimuli. While the schizophrenics were not significantly inferior with respect to efficiency in multidimensional stimulus combination and did not display abnormal patterns of dimensional combination, they were less sensitive to interstimulus variation in the relevant attributes. In the second study, subjects performed judgments of multidimensional similarity among verbal stimuli. Results indicated the several semantic dimensions of variation to be no less "accessable" to the schizophrenics when considered individually, but that these subject, especially those classified as paranoid, were less effective in combining the dimensions for multidimensional judgments. Discussion centered on theoretical reasons for deficit with the verbal stimuli and the nature of the semantic dimensions involved.