| Summary: | The treatment of schizophrenia as a homogeneous nosological entity, although currently prevalent, has little justification historically or experimentally. As its foundations, the scientific analysis of psychopathological behaviour demands an accurate and objective taxonomic system, and, therefore, failure to identify the sub-types of schizophrenia is methodologically invalid. In order to demonstrate the efficiency of a psychometric device in differentiating the schizophrenias, a modification of the Lowenfeld Mosaic Test was administered to a population of hospitalized schizophrenics grouped by sex, chronicity and diagnosis. The modifications of the standard instrument included: introduction of circular and mixed angular-circular shapes to the existing angular stones; incorporation of an ego-involving test set; and addition of an objective scoring system based on operational definitions. In order to investigate the relationships between this technique and other measures of cognitive and orectic functioning, the modified mosaic test was included in a battery of eight tests and behaviour rating scales. In addition, a form-association test was developed to investigate the relationship among geometric form and affective aspects of personality. Studies of scoring and retest consistency were also undertaken. A majority of the scoring categories showed significant differences between the acute and chronic groups, and between the paranoids and nonparanoids. No sex differences were found, and the differentiation between catatonics and hebephrenic-simples was less precise. Age, length of hospitalization and pharmacological therapy appeared to have minimal influence on test performance. Consistency of scoring was high, and retest reliability was satisfactory for the analysis of group tendencies. Categories appeared to relate to level of intellectual functioning and/or affective expression. Impairment of cognitive processes was explained tentatively on the basis of diminution of attention to the external environment, and the orectic manifestations were interpreted in terms of hypotheses involving an extra punitive - intropunitive bifurcation. It was concluded that the scoring categories utilized have considerable diagnostic validity, and that the modified mosaic test is highly efficient in differentiating the schizophrenias.
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