Self-organisation of cognitive processes and psychosis. Development and test of a theoretical model.

The development of a theory of self-control of brain processes leads to a model of disturbance of integration of brain processes in psychotic persons. The theory is that the "novelty-familiarity relation" of the current state of the processed information normally dominates the current mode of information processing. In the second part of the study adults with schizophrenia in remission and children with infantile autism were tested as to the manner in which they used newly introduced elements. The psychotic persons took the different character of the new elements less into consideration. The difference from the normal control persons is significant.