summary Many patients with schizophrenia exhibit behavior that might be caused by a deficit in their planning of daily activities. The nature of this disorder was investigated by cognitive neuropsychological research methods, in which simple figures had to be copied with concomitant accurate digital recording of pen movements. Recent examples of this type of research are described. They demonstrate that patients with schizophrenia show deficient 'implicit' planning. The graphic research methods that were used offer an interesting supplement to existing tests for explicit planning .