Sensitivity to syntactic structure: Good versus poor premorbid schizophrenics.

Abstract

Acute schizophrenics with either good or poor premorbid histories were compared with control groups of undergraduates and sixth-grade children on their sensitivity to syntactic structure in speech perception. They listened to strings of unconnected words, sentences with clicks embedded before, in, or after a clause break, and a passage of connected discourse that was interrupted at specific intervals after either a 1-clause or a 2-clause sentence. During designated test pauses they wrote down as many words as they could recall and indicated the location of the click in the sentences. The schizophrenics showed poor overall recall but did not differ from the control groups in the proportion of recall attributable to syntactic structure. According to Miller (1956), the human mind can handle only a limited number of discrete items at one time (the "magical number' 7 ± 2"). In order to assimilate more information, the mind "chunks" items together, recording this segment as one item to increase memory capacity. In listening to or reading verbal material, words are processed in segments which correspond to the surface structure and, although the specific wording may be lost, the general idea is retained. The advantage of such a chunking system is apparent. One normally hears verbal material only once. If a listener did not chunk, he could easily get lost in the large number of items with which he would have to deal and by losing the surface structure could also lose the underlying thought.

Semantic priming in schizophrenia: A review and synthesis

“…In this task, with an SOA of 500 ms and a 50% syntactic congruence proportion, the processing of syntactic congruence was intact in the schizophrenia group even in the absence of significant semantic priming effects. This is consistent with other reports of preservation of (and independence of ) syntactic processing in the face of deficits in the operation of semantic memory (Carpenter, 1976;Miller & Phelan, 1980).…”

The effect of distraction on sensitivity to syntactic structure in schizophrenic and affective disorders

“…For the schizophrenics, this result is consistent with data from several earlier investigations (e.g. Gerver, 1967;Rochester et af., 1973;Carpenter, 1976). The present study extends the generality of this conclusion to another paradigm (word recognition) and further demonstrates that patients with affective disorders are also unimpaired with regard to sensitivity to syntactic structure.…”

“…not deficient in the ability to utilize grammatical rules and structures (e.g. Gerver, 1967;Rochester et al, 1973; Carpenter, 1976;Straube et al, 1979). Thus, their problems in verbal communication apparently arise at the interface between linguistic knowledge and information-processing skills.…”

Language and schizophrenia

“…The increase was at least as large in his chronic schizophrenic sample as it was for the normals. Recent studies have replicated this result and extended it further, using other paradigms (Truscott, 1970;Rochester et al 1973;Carpenter, 1976).…”