Stephanie Portnoy

VERBAL BEHAVIOR OF SCHIZOPHRENIC AND NORMAL SUBJECTS

I n t h e b e g i n n i n g w a s t h e Word, a n d i t m u s t h a v e b e e n p o s i t i v e l y r e i n f o r c e d , b e c a u s e man h a s b e e n t a l k i n g i n c e s s a n t l y e v e r s i n c e . I t comes a s no s u r p r i s e , t h e r e f o r e , t h a t s t u d e n t s o f p s y c h o p a t h o l o g y s p e n d so much o f t h e i r t i m e a n d e n e r g y i n e x a m i n i n g t h e l a n g u a g e o f abnormal p e o p l e . S c h i z o p h r e n i c s p e e c h i n p a r t i c u l a r h a s g i v e n r i s e to many s t u d i e s a n d t h e o r i e s . I t h a s b e e n d e s c r i b e d a s “word s a l a d , ” a s too pers o n a l a n d a s t o o i m p e r s o n a l , a s n o n c o m m u n i c a t i v e , i d i o s y n c r a t i c , r e p e t i t i v e , d i s s o c i a t i v e a n d as o v e r l y g e n e r a l i z e d a n d , o f c o u r s e , o v e r l y c o n c r e t e . In t h e f a c e of t h i s o v e r f l o w o f t h e o r i e s a n d c o n t r a d i c t i o n of f a c t s , w e d e c i d e d to s t u d y some of t h e c o n d i t i o n s u n d e r w h i c h s c h i z o p h r e n i c s p e e c h s a m p l e s a r e c o l l e c t e d a n d to e v a l u a t e a t least some of t h e v a r i a b l e s w h i c h m i g h t i n f l u e n c e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f s c h i z o p h r e n i c s p e e c h . W e c h o s e a s o u r f i r s t s u b j e c t of s t u d y t h e s i t u a t i o n i n w h i c h d a t a a b o u t s c h i z o p h r e n i c v e r b a l b e h a v i o r is most o f t e n c o l l e c t e d , n a m e l y , t h e i n t e r v i e w . In a d i f f e r e n t c o n t e x t (Sa lz inger , 1959a) w e c o n c e p t u a l i z e d w h a t h a p p e n s to t h e d a t a a f t e r t h e y h a v e b e e n coll e c t e d i n a n i n t e r v i e w i n t e r m s of a c o m m u n i c a t i o n t h e o r y model . T h e i n t e r v i e w e r i n t e r v i e w e e i n t e r a c t i o n c o n s t i t u t e s t h e o r i g i n a l m e s sage t h e i n p u t w h i c h p a s s e s through a s e r i e s o f f i l t e r s a n d n o i s e g e n e r a t o r s c o n s i s t i n g o f t h e i n t e r v i e w e r ’ s p o w e r s of o b s e r v a t i o n a n d memory, h i s s e l e c t i v e r e c o r d i n g t e c h n i q u e s , h i s m e t h o d s of a n a l y s i s of t h e d a t a , a n d h i s s u m m a r i z i n e m e a s u r e ; o n l y a f t e r t h e i n f o r m a t i o n h a s b e e n par t ly lost a n d par t ly d i s t o r t e d is t h e r e a n o u t p u t w h i c h c o n s i s t s o f t h e c l i n i c i a n ’ s j u d g m e n t of d i a g n o s i s , p rogn o s i s , t y p e of t h o u g h t d i s o r d e r , o r w h a t h a v e you. Al though t h i s model g i v e s r i s e to a s e r i e s of i d e a s for r e s e a r c h , as , for e x a m p l e , how m u c h informat ion i s l o s t a t e a c h f i l t e r , i t is a model a b o u t the

The effect of reinforcement on continuous speech and on plural nouns in grammatical context

Summary An attempt was made to reexamine the conditioning of plural nouns with Ss being required to speak in sentences. This procedure made the definition of the response class less ambiguous than in previous studies and made it possible to gauge the effect of reinforcement in a situation in which the emission of the response to be conditioned is also controlled by the emission of other responses. One group of Ss was reinforced (by money) on a continuous reinforcement schedule for the emission of plural nouns. Another group was reinforced (by money) for the emission of speech in general on a 30-sec fixed-interval reinforcement schedule with a 10-sec hold. Results showed that it was possible to condition both speech in general and plural nouns in particular. More detailed analysis of the plural nouns showed that only those which ended in /z/ increased in response to the reinforcement. Examination of other possible response classes overlapping in membership with the response class defined by the experimenter, showed that number of singular nouns decreased during conditioning of plural nouns. It was concluded that it is possible to condition at least a subclass of plural nouns when S speaks in sentences and that it is worthwhile to examine the membership of response classes related to those the experimenter reinforced.

Intrusions in schizophrenic speech: the immediacy hypothesis vs the lapse of attention hypothesis.

Abstract Speech samples emitted by schizophrenics and individually matched normals were compared to test whether the immediacy hypothesis or the lapse-of-attention view explains the basis of schizophrenic verbal behavior more effectively. Intrusions in speech were employed as indicators of fluctuating attention, and the guessability of words deleted from speech (“cloze”) was used as a measure of general communicability. Since the inclusion or exclusion of intrusions made no difference with respect to the differential communicability of the speech of normals and schizophrenics, we concluded that the immediacy hypothesis was more consonant with the data than the lapse-of-attention view.

From Method to Madness

The philosphers of science have it that scientists ponder theories for long periods of time, and then, by the use of the method of deduction, come up with testable hypotheses that they then carefully subject to experimentation in order to vote the theory up or down. But life being what it is, and scientists being human beings first and scientists second, if not third or fourth, theory usually gets dragged in screaming, if at all, only after the scientists have had their fun in the laboratory. Now, presumably, if one searched far and long enough, one would find a scientist who obeyed the laws set down by the philosophers of science, but much more likely, a search for the philosopher’s scientist would turn up those who simply bring the theory to bear after the fact, who keep the theory alive only in the backs of their minds, or who (we hesitate to mention) pay theory no heed at all but have their ideas for experiments come fully formed from their heads, rushing out to collect their data before the opportunity to do so escapes them.