Attentional functions in listening and schizophrenia. A selective review.

Maintaining the focus on one sound object or shifting it to another are considered to be two important attentional functions in selective listening, which may serve to differentiate attentional deficits in schizophrenics with respect to their psychopathology. To avoid confounding attentional control with effects of cerebral organization (laterality) as in dichotic listening, it is suggested that spatial hearing is taken into account when testing these attentional operations.