The influence of context on language perception in schizophrenia

The present experiment employed the 'Cloze' procedure to investigate language perception in schizophrenia. The stimulus immediacy hypothesis of Salzinger, Portnoy & Feldman (1966) predicts that with increasing context, schizophrenic performance, unlike that of normals, will fail to improve. A comparison of groups of schizophrenics and normals on such a task, with varying levels of context, not only showed that schizophrenics failed to improve with greater context but that their performance deteriorated. A comparison of acute and chronic schizophrenics indicated that deterioration was most prominent in acute patients, the performance of chronics remaining relatively stable. An interpretation of the data in terms of narrowed the performance of chronics remaining relatively stable. An interpretation of the data in terms of narrowed attention in chronic schizophrenia appears plausible, and consistent with Broen's (1968) theory. Such an interpretation may be 'tested by an extension of the range of context conditions.