THE INFLUENCE OF EXTRANEOUS STIMULATION ON THE REACTION TIME OF SCHIZOPHRENICS

There was a general tendency for all schizophrenics regardless of classification to show a greater fall off of performance over time than normals, and RT's of withdrawn schizophrenics were significantly faster when they worked in a brightly lit room than when they work in a dimly lit room.

Abstract

In a first experiment 74 chronic schizophrenics made 50 consecutive responses to the presentation of a stimulus light on each of two occasions. In an experimental run a 70 db white noise sounded between responses 21–30; in the control run there was no extraneous stimulation. Patients rated as ‘withdrawn’ showed an increase in speed of reaction in the presence of the noise, while there was no evidence to show that the extraneous stimulus affected those patients rated as ‘sociable’. There was a general tendency for all schizophrenics regardless of classification to show a greater fall off of performance over time than normals. In a second experiment 30 sociable and 30 withdrawn patients responded to an auditory stimulus, in two different conditions of illumination. RT's of withdrawn schizophrenics were significantly faster when they worked in a brightly lit room than when they worked in a dimly lit room. Sociable patients showed a slight tendency to work faster in dim illumination. The findings are discussed.