No abstract

Two experiments attempted to isolate and measure schizophrenic anhedonia as it is reflected in the mnemonic processing of affectively laden stimuli. In the first experiment, subjects were required to sort a list of words repeatedly, each in terms of pleasantness, until a consistent sorting was achieved. Then, they were unexpectedly asked to recall the list. Schizophrenics' total recall was comparable to that of normals; but while normals recalled significantly more pleasant than unpleasant words (a Pollyanna tendency), such differential recall was absent in schizophrenics (anhedonia). These results were complicated, however, by the intrusion of semantic variables into the affective processing. In the second experiment, human faces were used to minimize semantic intrusions. Subjects were induced to encode photographs of faces in the context of favorable-unfavorable personality traits, and their recognition memory for these faces was subsequently tested. In spite of comparable overall performance, normals recognized significantly more favorably than unfavorably encoded faces, and such asymmetric recognition was absent in schizophrenics. Furthermore, a significant Group by Affect interaction emerged. The results were taken as evidence of schizophrenic anhedonia and normals' Pollyanna tendency. Nonschizophrenics also served as controls but their results were equivocal. Several problems which may be typical in the experimental investigation of affect were discussed.

Two experiments were performed to determine if the dysfunction in mnemonic organization often found in schizophrenic free-recall performance is simply the result of an organizational deficit in short-term memory processing. In Experiment 1, categorical cues (letters and digits) were introduced into a Sternberg item recognition task. Schizophrenics utilized the categorical cue to reduce their latencies for search and retrieval as well as both normals and nonschizophrenic psychiatric patients did. In Experiment 2, which used a Sternberg context-recall task, subjects' latencies for both forward and backward sequential retrieval were measured. Schizophrenics again performed as well as controls in this serial contextual task. Data analyses also suggested that the retrieval strategies adopted by schizophrenics were comparable to those of controls in both experiments. It is concluded that shizophrenics' short-term memory processes for categorical and sequential materials are adequate and therefore are not responsible for the organizational dysfunction in their free-recall performance.The human environment consists of a potentially infinite number of stimuli. Since people have a limited capacity to process information, they must economize this capacity by categorizing and organizing the large amount of information into a manageable size (see Rosch & Lloyd, 1978). These organizational operations can be based on structure that is either inherent in the environment or imposed on it by the perceiver. Similar operations are necessary in mnemonic processing; that is, people must elaborate and chunk to-be-remembered material into deeper and higher memory units in order to reduce their memory load (e.g., This study is part of a program investigating schizophrenia that is being conducted at the Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Institute of Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, under the general direction of Roy R. Grinker, Sr. The research was partially supported by U.S. Public Health Service Grants MH-18991 and MH-5519. Special thanks go to Thomas S. Brown and Barbara E. Marusarz for their helpful comments and advice throughout this investigation.Requests for reprints should be sent to Thaddeus Z. Marusarz, Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Institute,

No abstract

No abstract