Breadth of deviate concepts used by schizophrenics.

Abstract

This study investigated interfering overresponsiveness to a conceptual task in schizophrenics and attempted to isolate other situational conditions under which it occurs. The hypothesis was "the schizophrenic tendency to over-include in a sorting task is positively related to the degree to which incorrect items share common qualities with the correct items in a given conceptual category." One normal and 2 schizophrenic groups, consisting of 24 males each, served as Ss. The results of the sorting tasks confirmed the hypothesis. An attempt was also made to determine whether schizophrenics showed excessive narrowing of the conceptual basis for sorting, but no difference between schizophrenics and normals was found.