ABSTRACT

Spatial processing deficits are the reason for many daily life problems of schizophrenia (SCZ) patients. In this study, we aimed to examine the possibility of abnormal bias to one hemifield, in form of hemispatial neglect and extinction, in auditory modality in SCZ. Twenty-five SCZ patients and 25 healthy individuals were compared on speech tasks to study the auditory neglect and extinction, as well as an auditory localization task for studying neglect. In the speech tasks, participants reproduced some nonsense syllables, played from one or two speakers on the right and/or left sides. On the localization task, examinees discriminated the subjective location of the noise stimuli presented randomly from five speakers. On the speech task, patients had significantly lower hit rates for the right ear compared with controls (p = 0.01). While healthy controls showed right ear advantage, SCZs showed a left ear priority. In the localization task, although both groups had a left-side bias, this bias was much more prominent for the patients (all p < 0.05). SCZ could potentially alter the auditory spatial function, which may appear in the form of auditory neglect and extinction on the right side, depending on the characteristics of patient population.

摘要

空间处理缺陷是精神分裂症（SCZ）患者许多日常生活问题的原因。在这项研究中，我们旨在检查在 SCZ 的听觉模式中以半空间忽视和消退的形式出现异常偏向的可能性。对 25 名 SCZ 患者和 25 名健康人进行了比较，以研究听觉忽视和消退的言语任务，以及研究忽视的听觉定位任务。在演讲任务中，参与者再现了一些无意义的音节，从右侧和/或左侧的一两个扬声器播放。在定位任务中，被试从五个说话者中辨别出随机呈现的噪声刺激的主观位置。在语音任务中，与对照组相比，患者右耳的命中率显着降低（p= 0.01)。虽然健康对照组显示出右耳优势，但 SCZ 显示出左耳优先级。在定位任务中，虽然两组都有左侧偏倚，但这种偏倚在患者中更为突出（均p < 0.05）。SCZ 可能会改变听觉空间功能，这可能会以右侧听觉忽视和消退的形式出现，具体取决于患者群体的特征。