Memory scanning in a visual search task by schizophrenics and normals.

Chronic schizophrenics, acute schizophrenics (N = 18), and normals (N = 9) participated in a memory scanning task in which the visual display consisted of either common words, word-like strings of letters, or randomly arranged letters. Unlike earlier results, the slope of the function that relates reaction time to memory set size was significantly higher for the two schizophrenic groups than for the normal group. Among the chronic schizophrenics only reaction time to word display was higher than to display with random letters. The implications for theories that hypothesize deficits at specific stages of processing among schizophrenics are discussed.