A pattern of speech that is indirect and delayed in reaching its goal because of excessive or irrelevant detail or parenthetical remarks. The speaker does not lose the point, as is characteristic of lossening of associations, and clauses remain logically connected, but to the listener it seems that the end will never be reached. Compare with tangentiality.
A characteristic of conversation involving the use of many irrelevant details.
A disturbance in thought process evidenced by inclusion of excessive, tangential, and irrelevant information when asked a question; associated with schizophrenia and obsessive disorders.
A disorder of thought in which thinking and speech proceed slowly and with many unnecessary trivial details It is sometimes seen in organic psychosis in schizophrenia, and in people of pedantic and obsessional personality.
Disturbance of the associative thought and speech processes in which the patient digresses into unnecessary details and inappropriate thoughts before communicating the central idea. It is observed in schizophrenia, obsessional disturbances, and certain cases of dementia.