RT Journal
A1 Gur RE
T1 COgnitive concomitants of hemispheric dysfunction in schizophrenia
JF Archives of General Psychiatry
JO Archives of General Psychiatry
YR 1979
FD March 1
VO 36
IS 3
SP 269
OP 274
DO 10.1001/archpsyc.1979.01780030035002
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1979.01780030035002
AB • Forty-eight schizophrenics (24 paranoids, 24 nonparanoids) and 24 matched controls (12 men and 12 women in each group) were asked to detect the differences between 30 pairs of altered pictures presented successively (15 pairs) and simultaneously (15 pairs) in a counterbalanced order. Overall performance, as measured by reaction time and response quality, was better for controls than for schizophrenics. However, schizophrenics, like right hemisphere brain-damaged patients who presumably rely on their left hemisphere, reacted faster in the successive presentation procedure while the controls reacted equally fast in both conditions. These results support the hypothesis that schizophrenics tend to overactivate their left dysfunctional hemisphere. Twenty-four depressed patients, tested in the same procedure, showed a pattern of results similar to that of controls, suggesting that the results obtained for schizophrenics are not a general characteristic of psychosis.