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Effects of LSD-25 on Tests of Personality

Institute of Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital, London, S.E.5

ABSTRACT

The hypothesis was tested that LSD-treated normals react in the same way as psychotics (?schizophrenics) in a series of tests previously validated against the normal—psychotic, or neurotic—psychotic dichotomy. Confirmation of the hypothesis would tend to strengthen the assumption that LSD produces in normals a psychotic.like reaction, that is one in which all the measurable characteristics are also found in the clinical psychoses, particularly schizophrenia.

In fact, confirmation was only obtained in seven out of the ten scores of self-rating, perceptual variability, duration of the negative after-image, estimation of quantities, two types of immediate recall error, and variability in size of certain drawings. The remaining three scores were of "response set". In the case of two of these (measuring likes of abstract designs and generalization in recognition) the hypothesis was not confirmed, and in the other (certainty in recognition) it was definitely contradicted. The discussion favoured interpretation of these results as supporting a drug rather than a disease oriented theory of LSD action.