[1] It tends to occur in situations where a person is experiencing high anxiety, as a manifestation of the psychosis known as schizophrenia, in dementia or in states of delirium.
[4] Those who exhibit these behaviors may also have related symptoms such as seemingly inappropriate or self-centered social responses, and a deterioration in pragmatic abilities (including appropriate eye contact as well as topic maintenance).
[6][7][8] In the context of a conversation or discussion the communication is a response that is ineffective in that the form is inappropriate for adequate understanding.
[2] The earlier phenomenological description (Schneider 1930;et al.) allowed for further definition on the basis of formal characteristic rather than content, producing later practice relying upon clinical assessment (Andreasen 1979).
[10] The term has undergone a re-definition to refer only to a person's speech in response to a question, and to provide the definition separation from the similar symptoms loosening of association and derailment (Andreasen 1979).