Interpretations of proverbs in schizophrenic and depressive patients

Interpretation of Ambiguous Idiomatic Statements in Schizophrenic and Depressive Patients. Evidence for Common and Differential Cognitive Patterns

“…Concrete responses reached a level of 15% in the depressive group and 11% in the schizophrenic group. This result confi rms (a) the presence of a common pattern of language disorders in schizophrenia patients and depressive patients [48] , in particular in tasks that test metaphor comprehension [33][34][35] , and (b) shows that this pattern relates to the presence of concrete elements, thus eliminating an analysis of the global meaning [32] of the semantic material. It is important to point out the crucial difference between concrete responses as defi ned in the present study and concretistic thinking and behavior typically described in schizophrenic patients in phenomenological descriptions of the disorder [49] .…”

“…Using a task requiring the interpretation of a complex scene presented in picture form, Reich and Cutting [32] observed that both schizophrenic and depressive subjects tended to focus on details before attempting global integration, unlike the normal subjects in the experiment who were signifi cantly more likely to begin with a global approach and then to give the detailed evidence. Furthermore, a number of authors have observed disorders in the interpretation of metaphorical proverbs in depressive patients [33][34][35] .…”

Word Meaning Structure as a Predictor of Depression in Estonian Defense Forces

“…Depression is also negatively related to cognitive ability (Brown et al, 1994;David et al, 2002;Ou et al, 2001). Similarly, deficits in abstract thinking are related to elevated levels of depression (Braff & Beck, 1974;Braff et al, 1983;Brattemo, 1961;Emerson, Mollet, & Harrison, 2005;Leon-Carrion et al, 2001). Finally, WMS was negatively correlated with the level of depression at Time 2.…”

“…It has been found that deficits in abstract thinking are related to depression (Braff & Beck, 1974;Braff, Glick, & Griffin, 1983;Brattemo, 1961;Emerson, Mollet, & Harrison, 2005;Leon-Carrion et al, 2001). Thus, it can be expected that the higher the level of scientific concept thinking, the lower the level of depression, because scientific concept thinking can be understood as more abstract compared to more concrete everyday concept thinking.…”