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LABILITY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA
Author(s) -
O'CONNOR N.,
DAS J. P.
Publication year - 1959
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1959.tb00712.x
Subject(s) - lability , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , audiology , extinction (optical mineralogy) , latency (audio) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , chemistry , medicine , biochemistry , mineralogy , electrical engineering , engineering
Paranoid and non‐paranoid schizophrenics and a control group of normal males were matched for age and compared on three measures of lability. Lability was first measured in terms of the ratio of trials to condition and to extinguish or the ratio of trials to extinguish and recondition. Secondly, it was measured in terms of latencies of response before and after extinction, and thirdly in terms of response pressure before and after extinction. The measures of lability were obtained with each of three groups of subjects under two stimulus conditions, one in which the stimulus was a light and another in which it was a spoken word. Considerable differences in ease of extinction were apparent between the two types of signal. With the visual (non‐verbal) signal, extinction was achieved much more readily than with the verbal signal, irrespective of diagnostic group. This result seemed contrary to expectation on the basis of Pavlovian theory. It was incidentally observed that the variability of latency scores was greater in schizophrenics than in normals as expected, but that the variability of pressure scores was less.