Patterns of Recall in Schizophrenics and Normal Subjects

In two experiments it was demonstrated that the patterns of recall exhibited by schizophrenics qualitatively changed as the amount of structure present in the encoding and retrieval environments changed. When the encoding environment was structured and the retrieval environment was left unstructured (experiment 1), the schizophrenics' recall was not only lower than that of the normal subjects, but the patterns of recall of the two groups qualitatively differed. When encoding and retrieval environments were both structured (experiment 2), the patterns of recall exhibited by both groups were identical, although the schizophrenics continued to exhibit a recall deficit. This pattern of performance is more consistent with the notion that the recall deficit is caused by disease-induced depression of attentional capacity rather than by irreversible defects in ability to process information.