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Experiments on Contextual Constraint in Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

J. M. Raeburn  and
J. E. Tong
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Extract

Contextual constraint is a measure of the degree to which any one word in a passage is determined by the words which precede it, and can be expressed in terms of dependent probabilities. A recall task devised to investigate this topic was designed by Miller and Selfridge (1950) for an investigation on the statistical structure of words in context. Contextual constraint is at its highest in a passage of English text and at its lowest in a passage of unrelated words selected at random. The Miller and Selfridge task requires the subject to listen to seven passages of words in turn and at the end of each passage to write down the words he can remember. The seven passages are arranged in order of increasing contextual constraint from random words to a piece of text.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 114 , Issue 506 , January 1968 , pp. 43 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1968 

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