Abstract

This experiment investigates the factors influencing on the recall of short-term memory in schizophrenics. Thirty-six seven-nonsense syllable lists, varing in degree of information stimulus, were presented to 30 women schizophrenic and 30 women normal subjucts for free recall. Half of the lists were auditory presentation, the remainder being visual presentation. A third of the lists were random sequences, a third were organized consonant vowel sequences, and a third were nonsense syllable sequences being a meaningful word in combination. The findings resulting from this study are as follows; 1. Schizophrenics gave significantly lower recall than did normals 2. Schizophrenics showed no significant differences between the auditory lists and the visual lists, but normals produced a more recall in the visual lists than the auditory lists. 3. Schizophrenics showed no significant differences among the random × the organization × the meaningful interaction at the auditory presentation, but the visual presentation produced a large increament in the recall of the meaningful stimulus (the random × the meaningful, the organization × The meaningful interaction). Normals produced a significantly higher recall increament in the meaningful list than the organization list and the organization list than the random list from the both of the visual and the auditory presentation. 4. In the amount of the performance confusion spouses, schizophrenics also gave significantly higher recall than did normals. 5. In the effect of serial position, auditory presentation. indicated that both schizophrenics and normals had higher recalling in the early and the last serial position from the random and the organization lists, while meaningful list h.ad lower recalling in the last item than the early items. Visual presentation showed that both groups had higher recalling item in the early serial position, while revealed lower recalling item in the early serial position, while revealed lower recalling in the last item from all information stimuli (random, organization, meaningful).