Allusive thinking and its physiological correlates.

Abstract

In schizophrenic thought disorder, there is a relative inability to inhibit those aspects of a concept which the context makes irrelevant. The thinking of many normal people shows a similar tendency and has been called allusive thinking. In the present study of 62 students, it was found that allusive thinkers differed significantly from non-allusive thinkers in their pattern of conditioning. The allusive thinkers showed less ability to delay conditioned responses and less ability to suppress irrelevant responses. It was concluded that weakness of inhibition as manifested by allusive thinking was significantly related to weakness of inhibition in classical conditioning.