«Tactile Pictogram» Method: Differences in Tactile Perception Strategies in Schizophrenia and Healthy Control

The article presents the results of a study of tactile perception. The phenomena of hypersensitivity and hypensensitivity in mental pathology are associated with chenges of reaction rate, thresholds of perception of tactile stimuli, or with physiological characteristics — a change in the tactile receptor system (McGlone F., 2014). This study was performed as an attempt to identify cognitive perception strategies (styles) for the tactile system, as well as their changes in patients with a hallucinatory-paranoid form of schizophrenia. The method, which we called the “tactile pictogram”, was developed to identify tactile perception features. Stimuli: eight textile samples (different fabrics), the same size and shape (A5), but different in structure, density, color and texture. Instruction: We allow the patient to touch the fabtic with closed eyes to feel it (fabrics presented one by one) and tell any words to memorize this fabric. After that, as a test it was necessary to find out the fabric according to your description. Subjects was 45 students (department of psychology), age 20 to 50 years. 24 patients with a hallucinatory-paranoid form of schizophrenia and schizotypic disorder (F20.0, F21.0 in ICD-10) aged 14 to 40 years. Patients at the time of the study were medicated, pathological symptoms persisted. All the received characteristics were combined into categories: “image”, “symbol”, “color and pattern”, “function”, “subjective evaluation”, “affiliation”, “objective evaluation”, “associations by place”, “character”. The answers of the subjects were coded according to the categories, expert assessments were used. The values of the U-test for the intergroup differences p = 0.05 for the categories “image”, “symbol”, “color and pattern”. In general, both healthy and schizophrenics used no more than three perception strategies. Some samples have recognizable features (cotton) and do not differ in characteristics in patients and healthy. Conclusions: 1. For tissue samples: cotton, fine viscose and thin felt for both groups, no differences between groups are revealed; 2. Intergroup differences in other samples showed a predominance of associative strategies in patients with schizophrenia (compared to healthy ones).

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