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Unnatural practices, unspeakable actions: a study of delayed auditory feedback in schizophrenia
T E Goldberg1, J M Gold, R Coppola
1Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, NIMH, Washington, DC, USA.
Objective:
It has been suggested that auditory hallucinations and delusions of control in persons with schizophrenia could involve a disconnection between an "intention center" and a "monitoring center."
Method:
To test this model directly, the authors used a delayed auditory feedback paradigm in which the subject hears his or her own speech delayed electronically by a fraction of a second. In normal, subjects this produces dysfluency, which is thought to occur because an expectancy about the perceptual arrival of speech, formed in a monitoring center on the basis of corollary discharge from an intention center, is violated. If, however, a disconnection were present in schizophrenia, such an expectancy would not be formed; hence, less dysfluency should occur. Fifteen patients with chronic schizophrenia (10 of whom experienced auditory hallucinations and/or delusions of control) and 19 normal subjects were studied.
Results:
Rather than exhibiting less dysfluency than the normal subjects, patients with delusions and/or hallucinations exhibited significantly more dysfluency.
Conclusions:
These results do not support a cognitive model of disconnection.