Temporal Information Processing in Schizophrenia

Time judgment by unselected schizophrenic patients was studied with measures of potential and transmitted information. Schizophrenic and healthy subjects judged lights or sounds as more or less than a clock second, or as long or short with category scales using two ranges of durations. Patients and controls also compared the last, variable member of a pair of durations with the first, standard member within and across sense modes using three interduration intervals and a category scale; one control group ingested 200 mg secobarbital. The patients used fewer categories reducing potential information, and transmitted less information, with visual judgment suffering most in the method of single stimuli. Typical scale regulation strategies accompanied the deficit in transmitted and potential information.