that are often mul tiple, fragmented, or bizarre" (American Psychiatric Associa tion, 1987, p. 188). Bizarre refers to a "phenomenon that in the person's culture would be regarded as totally implausible" (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 188).
Form of thought refers to both a loosening of associa tions, and to a poverty of speech content (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). When a loosening of associations is mani fested, an individual's "ideas shift from one subject to another, completely unrelated or only obliquely related sub ject, without the speaker's displaying any awareness that the topics are unconnected" (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 188). Poverty of speech content is present when "speech is adequate in amount, but conveys little infornation 3because it is vague, overly abstract, or overly concrete, repe titive, or stereotyped" (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 188).
Hallucinations are major perceptual disturbances. The most common form in schizophrenia is audio, although hallucina tions may also be tactile, somatic, visual, gustatory, and olfactory in character (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 189).
Affective disturbances present in schizophrenia are either flat or inappropriate. Flat refers to a virtual absence of affective expression a monotonous voice, and an immobile face (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). Inappropriate refers to an affect which "is clearly discordant with the content of a person's speech or ideation" (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 189). The DSM III R cites the example of an indivi dual who laughs or smiles "while discussing being tortured by electrical shocks" (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 189). Of course (facetiously), this disturbance appears to affect most television network ne
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