Eleven schizophrenic psychotic and 11 manic psychotic patients have be
en compared with each other and wi a reference group of 34 dentists wi
th respect to their emotional experience of seven complex nonverbal so
unds. A rating form was used which measures three factors of emotional
perception: tension - relaxation (factor I), gaiety - gloom (factor I
I), and attraction - repulsion (factor III). Analyses of variance of t
he factor scores revealed main tendencies between the psychopathologic
al groups in factor I and III, i.e. schizophrenic psychotics rated the
sounds generally as more tense and more attractive than manic psychot
ics. The manic psychotics rated the sounds as generally less tense and
very much more attractive than the other groups. In factor II the man
ic psychotics rated one piece as significantly more gay than the other
groups. It is discussed in what ways these differences of complex sou
nd perception may be related to characteristic symptoms of the psychop
athological states. No convincing evidence may be drawn from this stud
y supporting the assumption that the two psychopathological groups mig
ht differ in a specific way in relation to any elementary structural p
roperty of the sounds.