Activation and facilitation in the lexicon of schizophrenics

45 schizophrenic patients of three different subtypes (chronic undifferentiated, schizoaffective and paranoid) and 15 normal control subjects completed a semantic priming version of the lexical decision task. Schizophrenic subjects demonstrated longer reaction times relative to normal controls; however, all of the subjects showed semantic facilitation effects. No significant differences in reaction times were found among the three schizophrenic subtype groups. These results suggest that initial sensory-perceptual processing is unimpaired in schizophrenia and thus provide evidence of intact automatic processing. The similarity in performance among the schizophrenic subtype groups refutes the theory of a paranoid/non-paranoid dimension at the initial level of automatic processing.

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