Campus Access Only

All rights reserved. This publication is intended for use solely by faculty, students, and staff of University of the Pacific. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, now known or later developed, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher.

Auditory attentional deficit in schizophrenia

Author

Esther Ann Gimpel, University of the Pacific

Date of Award

1973

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Martin T. Gipson

Abstract

Differences in auditory detection performance between schizophrenics and normals were examined in terms of the attentional processes involved. Each of 40 ~s (20 schizophrenics categorized along the dimensions of paranoia, premorbidity, and acuteness; and 20 hospital technical staff) were presented with 30 50-trial blocks of a tone detection task using 6 auditory ensembles consisting of 2 tones apiece separated by varying . ,. frequency bands. Tones were masked by white noise and presented in a free-running trial manner. The commonly found decrement in detection performance with normal subjects as the tones in the ensembles become more widely separated was replicated. But the differing frequency separations between the tones in the ensembles also yielded performance differences within. the various schizophrenic subclasses (except the chronic/acute subclass), as well as between schizophrenics and normals. These differences can be attributed to the attentional mechanisms of scanning and beam width as there were no cognitive component·s involved in the experimental task •

Pages

73

Recommended Citation

Gimpel, Esther Ann. (1973). Auditory attentional deficit in schizophrenia. University of the Pacific, Thesis. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/1796