Span of apprehension in acute schizophrenics.

Thirty hospitalized, acute, male, psychiatric patients (15 schizophrenics and 15 nonschizophrenics) were administered a full-report span of apprehension task. Contrary to previous studies which had employed a partial-report task, no differences were found between these two groups. From the two sets of findings, an explanation of schizophrenic deficit in terms of iconic (unprocessed) memory decay or general slowness in information processing seems untenable. On the other hand, differences in processing strategies, difficulty in disengaging from irrelevant stimulus elements, and difficulty in applying less familiar instructions remain as alternative explanations. The notion that partialversus full-report performance differences should be attributed only to differences in short-term memory loss is rejected.