Integration of schematic faces and other complex objects in schizophrenia.

Abstract

Twenty-one acute schizophrenic patients and 26 neurotic patients sorted each of six sets of 15 objects into three groups. A set consisted either of schematic faces, nonsense objects, or histoforms, each composed of five independently varying features. For the faces and nonsense objects these features could be integrated into a whole, whereas for the histoforms they could not. The distribution of four of the features was such that a set could be divided into three groups. The fifth feature either remained constant and had no effect on sorting performance or it varied randomly and acted as a distractor. Performance was assessed from the variance in common between the grouping actually present in a set and the grouping produced by the subject. For the control patients faces were sorted much better than histoforms if no distractor was present. However, performance with faces was massively impaired by a distractor while performance with histoforms was not. For the schizophrenic patients faces were not sorted better than histoforms and the effect of distraction was similar for every type of material. The performance of the controls suggest that the gestalt quality of the faces dominated over their constituent details. This enabled more features to be handled at once, thus achieving better sorting with faces than histoforms. However, it also made it more difficult for subjects to ignore a distracting component in the faces. The performance of the schizophrenics suggests that for them the integrated gestalt of the face was not dominant over its components.