Selected Abstracts

Rhinewine, J.P., & Docherty, N.M. (2002). Affective reactivity of language and right-ear advantage in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research 53, 181-186.

Notes that a subset of schizophrenic patients has demonstrated increased language dysfunction in affectively stressful, compared to non-stressful conditions. Affective reactivity of right-ear advantage has been demonstrated in studies of dichotic listening in schizophrenia. The present study assessed whether participants who showed affective reactivity of speech were also those who showed affective reactivity of right-ear advantage. Data from 18 schizophrenic outpatients (aged 19-44 yrs) were analyzed. Affective reactivity of language was associated with affective reactivity of right-ear advantage. The authors conclude that findings should be regarded as preliminary due to the small sample size; however, they may potentially contribute to construct the validity of affective reactivity as a process discriminator in schizophrenia.

        


Docherty, N.M., Rhinewine, J.P., Nienow, T.M., & Cohen, A.S. (2001) Affective reactivity of language symptoms, startle responding, and inhibition in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology,110: 194-198.

The speech of some schizophrenia patients becomes markedly more disordered when negative affect is aroused. The authors tested associations between affective reactivity of speech and responsiveness and inhibition on an acoustic startle task in a sample of 27 outpatients. Patients whose language was reactive to negative affect showed significantly higher initial startle amplitudes than those whose language was not reactive. However, they also showed greater habituation to repeated startle stimuli over trials, even after differences in initial amplitudes were controlled statistically. These findings suggest that affective reactivity of speech is associated with higher initial startle responsiveness but also with greater habituation and, conversely, that patients who are relatively nonreactive to excitatory affective and sensory stimuli are also less reactive to inhibitory input.

        


Gordinier, S.W., & Docherty, N.M.(2001). Factor analysis of the Communication Disturbances Index. Psychiatry Research, 101, 55-62.

Utilized factor analysis to investigate possible underlying processes in schizophrenic thought disorder. Using the Communication Disturbances Index, a measure of disruption in the communication of meaning from speaker to listener, the authors examined the speech of 58 stable schizophrenia outpatients (mean age 32 yrs) for 6 different types of referential communication disturbances (vague references, confused references, missing information references, ambiguous word meanings, wrong word references, and structural unclarities). Specifically, instances of disturbance per 100 words were calculated and then factor-analyzed. Obliquely rotated principal components factor analysis reveals both a 2- and a 3-factor solution (depending on factor inclusion criteria). In the 3-factor solution, the 1st 2 factors reflect weaknesses in language structural organization and in concept-boundary definition, respectively. The 3 factor appears to reflect weaknesses in specific facets of memory functioning. In the 2-factor solution, the aforementioned structural organization and concept-boundary definition factors are combined into a single executive functioning factor. Results from the study may be heuristic in the development of models of language disturbance in schizophrenia patients.

        


Barnes, G.W., Rhinewine, J.P. & Docherty, N.M.(2000). Perceptual aberration and schizotypy: A cautionary note. Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, 12, 98-99.

This study assessed 51 college students for associations between Continuous Performance Test performance and schizotypy scale scores. Results suggest that perceptual aberration scores, while generally correlated with overall schizotypy scores, may not be adequate as a single-criterion measure of schizotypy.