A learning theory approach to research in schizophrenia.

This chapter is concerned with some aspects of schizophrenic behavior that seem amenable to interpretation in terms of learning theory. There is no pretense of completeness or uniqueness of explanation, univocal experimental support or lack of other theories to explain the same behavior. The chapter reviews certain experiments studying the conditioning, generalization, and learning of schizophrenics, and show how these results can be understood in terms of learning theory. It outlines some possible conditions for the onset of the thinking disorder in schizophrenia. The chapter argues that generalization and high levels of anxiety may be mutually supportive and augmentative; generalization under these conditions may thus become excessive, leading to difficulties in sequential thought. It discusses the thinking disorder will suggest the reason for the transition from the acute to the chronic phase of the illness. The spiralling process described above has its own built-in stabilizer which leads the patient to chronicity.