[Stroop test and schizophrenia].

Abstract

Utilization of the Stroop test with schizophrenic subjects is reviewed from 32 studies published since 1960. This test, in which subject has to name the color of color-words which are congruent or incongruent, is much used as a selective attention test. Its specific disturbance in schizophrenics would confirm the overload of consciousness with unsignificant non filtered information, probably due to lowering of frontal functions. Stroop effect is not always raised in these patients, especially when general slowing is taken into account. Technical differences modify the test power and can explain contradictory results. The thought disorder symptom seems the most correlated with the results of the test, and particular sensitiveness of paranoïd form has been argued. Neuroleptics do not seem to act on Stroop effect. Factors explaining the great variability of patients in this test are not fully put in light. One hypothesis, already raised, is that the test is linked to a particular attentional constitutional aptitude, and whose relations with the illness are to be explained.