Background:
The semantic priming technique can be used to explore language deficits in individuals with thought disorder. Research suggests that thought disorder may reflect a difficulty in inhibition or an increase in spreading activation in one or both of the hemispheres in response to language-based information. Currently, little research has been done in this area and the research that is available is methodologically flawed.
Methods:
A lateralized version of a semantic priming task was used to examine the role of each hemisphere in processing language and to examine how the two hemispheres synchronize information. As in standard semantic priming task, reaction times to related and unrelated word pairs were contrasted. Novelly, to this experiment, word pairs were presented solely to the left (LL) or right (RR) visual field, or across visual fields; left-right (LR) or right-left (RL). Participants included 21 healthy controls and 42 participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (21 with thought disorder, 21 without). Repeated-measure ANOVAs were used to compare stimulus type (related vs. unrelated), visual field (LL, RR, LR, RL) and group.
Results:
Preliminary analyses suggest that there are significant differences in priming across visual fields between healthy controls and participants with schizophrenia. There were no significant differences between the two psychiatric groups.
Conclusions:
These data suggest that participants with schizophrenia have difficulty when performing a task where the two hemispheres must synchronize information. However, this pattern this does not seem to be causal for thought disorder.
