Behavioral and Brain Sciences


Short Communication

Mechanisms of disrupted language comprehension in schizophrenia


Ruth Condray a1 and Stuart R. Steinhauer a1

a1 Department of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 condrayr@msx.upmc.edu sthauer@pitt.edu www.wpic.pitt.edu/research/biometrics

Abstract

Mechanisms that contribute to perceptual processing dysfunction in schizophrenia were examined by Phillips & Silverstein, and formulated as involving disruptions in both local and higher-level coordination of signals. We agree that dysfunction in the coordination of cognitive functions (disconnection) is also indicated for many of the linguistic processing deficits documented for schizophrenia. We suggest, however, that it may be necessary to add a timing mechanism to the theoretical account.