Information processing, social skill, and gender in schizophrenia.

The relationships among information processing, social skill, and gender in individuals with chronic schizophrenia were investigated. Although there were no gender differences in information processing, social skill, or negative symptoms, performance on information-processing tasks was related to various indices of social skill (e.g., paralinguistic skill) for female, but not male, inpatients. This pattern of results remained after statistical controls were applied for age, illness chronicity, and positive symptoms.