Auditory gating in schizophrenia: a pilot study of the precedence effect

Individuals with schizophrenia are known to exhibit diminished auditory gating, as manifested by prepulse inhibition of the startle response and suppression of the P50 evoked potential. Those observations indicate that schizophrenics have deficits of inhibitory auditory processing. The precedence ef...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Schizophrenia research 2005-03, Vol.73 (2), p.327-331
Main Authors: Mickey, Brian J., Dalack, Gregory W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Auditory gating
Auditory perception
Auditory Perceptual Disorders - diagnosis
Auditory Perceptual Disorders - etiology
Biological and medical sciences
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Female
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
Pilot Projects
Precedence effect
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychophysics - instrumentation
Psychoses
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia - complications
Schizophrenia - physiopathology
Sound Localization
Space Perception - physiology
Speech Perception - physiology
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Summary:Individuals with schizophrenia are known to exhibit diminished auditory gating, as manifested by prepulse inhibition of the startle response and suppression of the P50 evoked potential. Those observations indicate that schizophrenics have deficits of inhibitory auditory processing. The precedence effect is a phenomenon in which inhibitory processing in the auditory system aids the localization of sound sources and segregation of speech in complex auditory environments. We tested the hypothesis that schizophrenic subjects would exhibit deficits in psychophysical tests of the precedence effect. The performance of 12 male medicated schizophrenic subjects was compared with that of 12 male comparison subjects. Schizophrenics and comparison subjects clearly demonstrated all three aspects of the precedence effect that were evaluated: echo suppression, buildup of echo suppression, and breakdown of echo suppression. In none of these aspects did the performance of schizophrenic subjects differ significantly from that of the comparison subjects. These findings suggest that abnormalities of auditory spatial processing and speech segregation are unlikely to contribute to the clinical pathology of schizophrenia.
ISSN:0920-9964
1573-2509
DOI:10.1016/j.schres.2004.08.024