Unnatural practices, unspeakable actions: a study of delayed auditory feedback in schizophrenia.
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."


METHODS
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.
Goldberg
T E
TE
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, NIMH, Washington, DC, USA.
Gold
J M
JM
Coppola
R
R
Weinberger
D R
DR
D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003702:Delusions / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013060:Speech