AUDITORY STUDIES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA
ARNOLD M. LUDWIG M.D.,
BENJAMIN S. WOOD JR. M.D., , and
MARION P. DOWNS M.A.1
1 Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Medical Center, Denver, Colo.
A pilot study was undertaken to evaluate some quantitative and qualitative aspects of schizophrenics' auditory behavior by means of 5 auditory tests. It was found that schizophrenics displayed completely normal auditory acuity on the pure tone and speech reception threshold tests, whereas they displayed significantly more abnormalities than controls on the tone decay, delayed auditory feedback and signal-to-noise ratio tests. There were no significant correlations between abnormal test function and other variables analyzed. The possibility of a peripheral neural inhibition working in conjunction with psychic denial was discussed as possible mechanisms accounting for these findings.
