| Psychoticism and Information Processing: High P Scorers Get Less Help From a Helpful Signal! | ||||||||
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People with schizophrenia have relatively slow
reaction times and often do not improve greatly with the help of a
warning signal. This study investigated whether this also applied to
psychoticism (P), a non-clinical trait thought to underly
schizophrenia. University undergraduates were administered a questionnaire for P, and were tested on a reaction time task under unsignalled (i.e. no warning signal) and signalled conditions (warning from 50 to 950 msec.). The results (see figure) showed that improvement due to the warning signal was reduced for those high on P - mainly because of their surprisingly faster reaction times in the unsignalled condition. Furthermore, higher P scorers seemed to lose ground at small preparatory intervals. The data suggest that high P scorers, like those with schizophrenia, may find that additional signals may produce an information overload that is a detriment to performance - rather than a help. |
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| Source: Thompson AH (1985). Psychoticism and signalled versus unsignalled reaction time. Personality and Individual Differences 6(6), 775-778. Click here for a copy of the full paper | ||||||||
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