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Perceptual asymmetries in schizophrenia: subtype differences in left hemisphere dominance for dichotic fused words
M S Friedman1, G E Bruder, P G Nestor
1New York State Psychiatric Institute and College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, USA. michelle_friedman@yahoo.com
Objective:
Dichotic listening techniques have been used to study hemispheric dominance for language in schizophrenia. The authors' goal was to compare subjects with paranoid and undifferentiated subtypes of schizophrenia.
Method:
The Fused Rhymed Words Test was used to compare perceptual asymmetries in 16 patients with paranoid schizophrenia, 28 patients with undifferentiated schizophrenia, and 29 healthy comparison subjects.
Results:
Patients with paranoid schizophrenia had the largest left hemisphere advantage and patients with undifferentiated schizophrenia had the smallest. The asymmetry of healthy subjects was intermediate. Hemisphere advantage varied as a function of gender only in the patients with undifferentiated schizophrenia.
Conclusions:
The findings support the hypotheses that undifferentiated schizophrenia is associated with underactivation of left hemisphere resources for verbal processing and that paranoid schizophrenia is characterized by preserved left hemisphere processing.
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