ABSTRACT
Evoked potential indices of an early and late stage of attentional processing were recorded from schizophrenic and normal subjects during dichotic listening tasks. Despite slow and inaccurate detections, the schizophrenic subjects were able to focus selectively to different ears but only at a fast stimulation rate, showing integrity of the early selective stage. They showed an abnormal late stage, indicating inefficiency in processing information from detected targets. Marked deficits at a slow stimulation rate and during divided attention suggest that the schizophrenic attention disorder is one of control and maintenance of a selective processing strategy rather than of general slowness or absence of selectivity.
Subject(s)
Attention/physiology , Brain/physiopathology , Schizophrenia/physiopathology , Auditory Perception , Evoked Potentials , HumansSubject(s)
Brain Stem/physiology , Evoked Potentials, Auditory , Extraversion, Psychological , Adolescent , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Reaction TimeABSTRACT
Clinical, demographic and psychosocial items of information were gathered on two samples of 41 single admission cases and 42 readmissions among a population of psychogeriatric patients. Discrominant function analysis indicated that different variables are predictive of readmission for females and males. A discriminant classification procedure demonstrated that contact with family, age and level of education are significant predictors of readmission (93% classification success) for males in the sample, while different factors, community involvement, type of treatment and follow-up, do not attain significance for women.
Subject(s)
Mental Disorders , Patient Admission , Patient Readmission , Aged , Classification , Demography , Female , Humans , Length of Stay , Life Style , Male , Middle Aged , Ontario , Probability , Psychiatric Department, Hospital/statistics & numerical data , Sex FactorsABSTRACT
A large number of different components of the auditory evoked potential can be recorded from the human scalp using averaging techniques. It is now possible to evaluate with such evoked potential measurements the functioning of the entire human auditory system from the hair cell receptors to the association areas of cortex. This multiplicity of evoked potential components is important clinically since any one component measurement may be the most appropriate for a certain subject at a certain time, and also because the replication of objective audiological findings using more than one testing method allows greater confidence in the results. As well as providing an accurate means of determining the extent of a hearing loss, evoked potential studies can also provide information concerning the type and location of such a defect.
