Redundancy and complexity of information in cognitive performances of schizophrenic and normal individuals.
Examined cognitive performance of schizophrenic and normal Ss matched on age, education, and intelligence (N = 120). Complexity of information and redundant cues were manipulated systematically in a concept identification (CI) task. Schizophrenics were not impaired compared to normals in solution of problems with low redundancy. Whereas normals' performance was facilitated by redundant information, schizophrenics demonstrated marked deficit in CI as a function of that information. Results were interpreted in terms of schizophrenics' inability to filter out irrelevant information, in addition to their deficit in channel capacity for utilizing relevant-redundant cues, which have been shown to reliably facilitate normals' CI.
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D003210:Concept Formation; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology