Indirect semantic priming in schizophrenic patients.

Schizophrenic patients and normal controls performed a lexical decision task involving the recognition of words which were preceded (primed) by either associated, indirectly associated, or non-associated words. In contrast to normal control subjects who showed no indirect semantic priming effect at an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of 0 ms, a trend towards such an indirect semantic priming effect was found in schizophrenic patients. With a longer ISI of 500 ms, an indirect semantic priming effect was obtained in both groups. In the framework of network models of semantic memory, the results are interpreted as further evidence for an increase in activation or decrease in inhibition in the spreading of associational activation in schizophrenic patients.