[Cognitive performance in schizophrenics. A contribution to experimental psychopathology]

1. From the field of cognitive performances we investigated visual perception under varied acoustical conditions providing a certain amount of guidance. Ss: 108 (paranoid schizophrenics n = 34, nonparanoid schizophrenics n = 33, controls n = 41). All were acute patients. Stimuli were arranged in various perceptive stages by factor analysis. Analysis of variance of times of perception resulted in: conditions which did not show any deficits in schizophrenics; by increasing stimuli complexity different deficits were found in nonparanoid and paranoid schizophrenics; in a special pattern of stimuli constellation paranoid schizophrenics showed a reversal of attention tendencies. 2. The results of many important experiments which are found in respect of "psychological deficit in schizophrenia" are integrated into the edifice of clinical psychiatry as follows: by defining several aspects of attention which make it possible to employ the experimental results with no regard to hypotheses; by an extensive historical investigation; in the classical literature about 1900 we found many equivalent forerunners to modern American terms; our experiments are connected closely with clinical psychiatry with view to structural psychopathology. 3. The aim is an experimental basis of the performances of schizophrenics as a prior condition of systematical rehabilitation.