Control and Schizophrenic subjects performed memory tests under condit
ions in which performance is influenced by newly acquired information
about associations between pairs of normatively unrelated words (a 'co
ntext' word and a target word). In Experiment 1, the associative memor
y test was implicit. Control and schizophrenic subjects reached the sa
me level of performance and, more importantly, both groups used contex
tual information to the same extent. In Experiment 2, subjects were su
bmitted to an explicit and an implicit memory test in succession. Over
all performance of schizophrenic patients was impaired in the explicit
memory test. But, as in Experiment 1, the two groups did not differ i
n the overall level of implicit memory, and context improved performan
ce to the same extent in both tests. These results run counter to the
widespread idea that schizophrenic patients exhibit a deficit in proce
ssing all types of contexts, and suggest that the deficit may be limit
ed to the processing of what Baddeley (1982) calls 'interactive' conte
xt.