Pathology of Thinking in Schizophrenia: A Neurolinguistic Approach to the Study of Impairment of the Generalization Process

The study attempts to present a critical review of certain problems in pathopsychological investigaton of operational thought disorders and to outline the possible ways for its further development. We compare the differences in approaches to the analysis of pathology of thinking in schizophrenia presented in the classic works of L.S. Vygotsky and B.V. Zeigarnik. We argue that, when studying some of the thought disorders in schizophrenia, it may be more effective to revert to Vygotsky’s approach associated with the investigation of word meaning disturbances in the analysis of disorders of the generalization process. As a way to further develop this approach to the study of thought disorders in schizophrenia, we suggest exploring the perspectives of synthesizing various research areas that have stemed from cultural-historical psychology. Basing on the analysis of Russian neurolinguistic studies of word meaning impairment, we propose two possible directions for studying the psychological and brain mechanisms of operational disorders of thinking.