Electrodermal and cardiac orienting in psychometrically defined high-risk subjects

The vast majority of research programs investigating subjects at high risk for psychopathology have relied on genetic criteria for subject selection. Recent reports, however, have begun to suggest alternative definitions and sets of criteria for the selection of high-risk subjects. One such alternative is a psychometric definition of risk--the selection of subjects on the basis of psychological test data. The present experiment used this strategy to study orienting and habituation to simple auditory stimuli in groups of young adult subjects reporting either physical anhedonia or perceptual aberrations. The study provided support for the hypothesized continuity between anhedonic subjects and the autonomically hyporesponsive group of patients frequently described in the literature on schizophrenia. Results are discussed in light of recent appeals to identify biologically homogeneous subgroups of schizophrenic patients.