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Allusive thinking, the Word Halo and verbosity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

M. S. Armstrong  and
N. McConaghy
M. S. Armstrong*
Affiliation:
New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry and The School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales
N. McConaghy
Affiliation:
New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry and The School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales
*
1Address for correspondece: Dr M. S. Armstrong, Psychiatric Unit, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, NSW 2031, Australia.
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Synopsis

The concept of allusive thinking is briefly reviewed and a Pavlovian model of thinking advanced. It is hypothesized that allusive, as compared with non-allusive thinkers, have a broader but less intense attention process associated with weaker inhibition. From this model it was predicted that on word tests which require judgements of similarity of meaning, allusive thinkers would tend to choose more remote or unusual words as similar in meaning.

The Word Halo Test and the Word Sorting Test were administered to 63 university students using the Object Sorting Test as a measure of allusive thinking. The prediction that allusive thinkers would choose more unusual words as similar in meaning was supported. A tendency for allusive thinkers to be more verbose than non-allusive thinkers was also noted.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , August 1977 , pp. 439 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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