Imagery mediation of vocal emphasis in flat affect.

The hypothesis that schizophrenics with flat affect have an interference with imagery mediation of language function was derived from clinical impressions that (1) such patients fail to show appropriate voice emphasis, and (2) that word imagery contributes to normal vocal emphasis patterns. Experiment 1 acoustically measured the emphasis patterns in schizophrenics with and without flat affect as they read text controlled for word imagery. Experiment 2 studied the effect of imagery in a paired-associate learning task in the same patients. The results supported the hypothesis, both for emphasis patterns and learning rates. These findings suggest that flat affect may be the product of factors in the schizophrenic process interacting with cognitive processes that are independent of the disease.