Goal-directed thinking in schizophrenics' associations

The relationships between associative structure and higher order cognitive processes in schizophrenia were investigated with a continuous word association technique. The chaining hypothesis involves the derailment of organized thought by response-produced stimuli, and the continuity hypothesis postulates a progressive disorganization of connotative meaning. Neither hypothesis was confirmed, as both schizophrenics and nonschizophrenics maintained the set of guiding responses according to the starting stimuli. Further, both groups showed progressive response disorganization despite the overall higher degree of relatedness in the nonschizophrenics. There was also no differential performance observed when comparing schizophrenics subgrouped by paranoid status and premorbid adjustment.