The relationship between information processing and language production.
We explored the relationships between information processing and language in order to further the understanding of language disturbances in psychiatric patients. To assess the impact of reduced processing capacity on language, 50 undergraduates completed an interview concurrent with a category monitoring task and a control interview without a concurrent task. Syntactic complexity, verbosity, and pause patterns were all disrupted by a reduction in processing capacity. In addition, individual differences in syntactic complexity and information processing were significantly associated, even after accounting for verbal intelligence. We discuss the relevance of the results for understanding language disturbances in psychopathology and hypothesize that a reduction in processing capacity may underlie the decreased syntactic complexity, decreased verbal output, and increased pause length found in schizophrenia.
Barch
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Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 61820.
Berenbaum
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012307:Risk Factors; D012564:Schizophrenic Language; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013850:Thinking; D014705:Verbal Behavior