RECOGNIZING PSYCHIATRIC-SYMPTOMS - RELEVANCE TO THE DIAGNOSTIC PROCESS

Current overemphasis on nosological diagnosis has led to a neglect of the process of symptom recognition. There is evidence, however, that t he perception of the symptom alone does not guarantee symptom ascertai nment since a decision-making component is also involved. To achieve t he latter, additional information must be provided by the contextual c ues implicit in the ongoing diagnostic hypothesis. Current diagnostic systems, however, still assume a two-stage model according to which sy mptom and disease recognition are independent cognitive events. This p aper suggests that this model is inadequate and that descriptive psych opathology is not transparent. It then describes a neural network simu lation to make various aspects of the problem explicit. This takes int o account the multidimensional and probabilistic aspects of symptom re cognition and is, from this point of view, superior to traditional alg orithmic models. It also has the capacity to represent the different c ognitive styles involved in symptom recognition.