Exposing the chimpanzee to language training appears to enhance the animal's ability to perform some kinds of tasks but not others. The abilities that are enhanced involve abstract judgment, as in analogical reasoning, matching proportions of physically unlike exemplars, and completing incomplete representations of action. The abilities that do not improve concern the location of items in space and the inferences one might make in attempting to obtain them. Representing items in space and making inferences about them could be done (...) with an imaginal code, but representing relations and judging the relations between them, as in analogies, requires a more abstract code. Language training cannot instill such an abstract code, but for species that have the code to start with, it may enhance the animal's ability to use it. (shrink)

How is it that many schizophrenics identify certain instances of verbal imagery as hallucinatory? Most investigators have assumed that alterations in sensory features of imagery explain this. This approach, however, has not yielded a definitive picture of the nature of verbal hallucinations. An alternative perspective suggests itself if one allows the possibility that the nonself quality of hallucinations is inferred on the basis of the experience of unintendedness that accompanies imagery production. Information-processing models of “intentional” cognitive processes call for abstract (...) planning representations that are linked to goals and beliefs. Unintended actions - and imagery - can reflect planning disruptions whereby cognitive products do not cohere with concurrent goals. A model of schizophrenic speech disorganization is presented that postulates a disturbance of discourse planning. Insofar as verbal imagery can be viewed as inwardly directed speech, a consequence of such planning disturbances could be the production of unintended imagery. This link between the outward disorganization of schizophrenic speech and unintended verbal imagery is statistically supported by comparing the speech behavior of hallucinating and nonhallucinating schizophrenics. Studies of “borderline” hallucinations during normal, “goal-less” relaxation and drowsiness suggest that experiential unintendedness leads to a nonpathological variant of hallucinatory otherness that is correctable upon emerging from such passive cognitive states. This contrasts with the schizophrenic case, where nonconcordance with cognitive goals reinforces the unintendedness of verbal images and sustains the conviction of an external source. This model compares favorably with earlier models of verbal hallucinations and provides further evidence for a language production disorder in many schizophrenics.Short Abstract: How is it that many schizophrenics identify certain instances of verbal imagery as hallucinatory? This paper proposes that the critical feature identifying hallucinations is the experience of unintendedness. This experience is nonpathological during passive conscious states but pathological if occurring during goal-directed cognitive processing. A model of schizophrenic speech disorganization is presented that postulates a disturbance of discourse planning that specifies communicative intentions. These alterations could generate unintended verbal imagery as well. Statistical data are offered to support the model, and relevant empirical studies are reviewed. (shrink)