Psychophysiological correlates of responsiveness in schizophrenia.

Abstract

Responsiveness under stress was measured through music preferences for 11 male and 9 female schizophrenics receiving no antipsychotic medication. Results indicated that higher responsiveness was related to lower skin conductance, fewer body movements, greater diastolic blood pressure decrease, better word recall, and shorter periods of institutionalization. Normal controls did not differ significantly in music preferences but were lower in all physiological measures. Finding that sweat gland activity, muscle tension, and diastolic blood pressure changes were related to stress in these acute schizophrenics paralleled the findings of Ax, Banford, Beckett, Domino, and Gottlieb with chronic schizophrenics. The interpretation that responsiveness is related to ability to cope with stress in schizophrenia was supported by the results of the current study.

On Perception of Complex Sound in Schizophrenia and Mania

“…DeWolfe el al. [4] reported that reactive schizophrenics preferred relaxed music and process schizophrenics preferred tense music. Iwata [5] described that a rating of mood on semantic differentials varied con siderably between neurotic groups, especially when divided into stress and nonstress groups.…”