Utility of the Canter Background Interference Procedure for Differentiating among the Schizophrenias

Abstract

The Bender-Gestalt was given following the Canter Background Interference Procedure (BIP) to 40 schizophrenics divided into paranoid-nonparanoid and processreactive sub-categories. Nonparanoids performed significantly poorer under BIP conditions than under standard procedure. Paranoids performed equally well under both conditions. Comparison with Canter's brain-damaged Ss indicated that process nonparanoid schizophrenics resemble brain-damaged Ss using this procedure.Canter (1 966) has presented evidence that the performance of brain-damaged subjects on the Bender-Gestalt test is significantly impaired when the test items are drawn against a distracting background of wavy lines. He has called this modification the Background Interference Procedure (BIP). The BIP is of conceptual interest because it changes the Bender-Gestalt from a simple copying task to one with strong attentional components.Silverman (1 964) and McGhie (1969) have marshalled evidence that schizophrenia, particularly if one excepts paranoid schizophrenia, is basically an attentional disorder. If so, nonparanoid schizophrenics should show the same kind of deterioration under BIP conditions as do braindamaged patients. However, Canter (1966) found that a group of psychotic patients showed significantly less deterioration in performance than a braindamaged group, under BIP conditions. Of his psychotic patients 22 of 38 were diagnosed as schizophrenic reactions, but were not further differentiated.This study explores the hypothesis that nonparanoid schizophrenics will perform more poorly on a task with attentional distraction than on one without. In this they should differ from paranoid schizophrenics but resemble the braindamaged.

Neuropsychological test results associated with psychiatric disorders in adults.

“…Finally, there were no significant differences in deficit scores between the 78 paranoid and the 81 nonparanoid schizophrenics. Horine and Fulkerson (1973) also found no significant differences between 20 paranoid and 20 nonparanoid schizophrenics on the BGT.…”

“…Parsons and Klein (1970) also recorded significant differences between 15 process and IS reactive schizophrenics on the Herron Modified Category Test; the reactives but not the process schizophrenics did significantly better than a group of IS organics. Horine and Fulkerson (1973) obtained significantly poorer BGT performances from 20 process schizophrenics than from 20 reactives. McDonough (1960), however, found no significant differences between 20 reactive and 20 process schizophrenics on the Critical Flicker Frequency and Spiral Aftereffect Tests; both schizophrenic groups did significantly better than a group of 20 organics on these tests.…”

“…Compared with these latter standards, only one "good" hit rate was obtained with chronic schizophrenics, using a previously established test score cutoff. Moreover, even this one success achieved by Canter (1971) with his BGT-BIP difference is contrasted with a much lower hit rate reported by Horine and Fulkerson (1973). Despite the promise shown by the BGT-BIP difference and a few optimal cutoffs on other tests, the evidence summarized in Table 1 suggests that chronic/ process schizophrenics perform much as do organics on most behavioral tests of cerebral dysfunction.…”

Clinical utility of the background interference procedure for the Bender-Gestalt test

“…I n fact, results of uncontrolled studies often have been less positive than the Canter and Fulkerson (1973) found that the BIP misclassified over 5oy0 of nonparanoid schizophrenics. Adams (1971) obtained hit rates of only 52% and 61% using BIP manual criteria, but reported that these increased to much higher values using post hoc cut-off scores chosen to maximize group discrimination.…”