Breadth of attention and social withdrawal in hallucinated and non-hallucinated chronic schizophrenics

Abstract

The relationship between the degree of social withdrawal and breadth of attention in 24 chronic non-paranoid schizophrenics was investigated by relating clinical ratings of withdrawal to performance on a card sorting task. The results obtained by Venables (1963) confirming this relationship could not be replicated for the whole group. The experimental design differed in some aspects from the Venables design. Results were suggestive of a qualitative difference between hallucinated and non-hallucinated schizophrenics. In the hallucinated group, more withdrawn patients showed a narrower span of attention than less withdrawn patients; this relationship could not be seen in the non-hallucinated group. The case study reported was carried out at Mount Carmel Hospital, Attard, Malta.