Schizotypal individuals have even demonstrated overactivation of the left hemisphere when processing linguistic information (Overby, 1992). Whilst this slight over-activation produces superior performance, greater activation can lead to a dysfunctional state and impaired performance. The disparity present in these findings may be attributed to the variety of stimuli utilized across the measures of lateralisation. Employing the divided visual GSK2118436 purchase field technique, which involves presentation of visual stimuli to either the left or right visual field,

Broks (1984) and Suzuki and Usher (2009) demonstrated reduced left hemisphere specialisation of language with consonant–vowel–consonant nonsense syllables. Operating within the same sensory modality, Rawlings and Claridge (1984) demonstrated a reversal of the expected left hemispheric dominance for language, in favour of superior right hemisphere performance. This result of a right hemisphere specialisation may be due to the utilisation of letters as stimuli, which can be recognised using two strategies. Specifically, the authors suggest that two personality types might rely on different processing mechanisms, with

the high schizotypy group possessing a visual processing skill (implicating the right hemisphere), compared to the low schizotypy group who utilize the typical linguistic strategy (implicating the left hemisphere). Despite these heterogeneous findings, it appears that commonalities exist between schizophrenia and the sub-clinical level of the schizotypal personality spectrum in the

way of lateralisation for language. MDV3100 clinical trial Abiraterone mouse These commonalities may be influenced by the number and severity of some of the symptoms experienced. Sommer and collaborators (2001), for example, found that patients suffering from schizophrenia who had less severe hallucinatory symptoms, displayed an increased language lateralisation that pointed towards the typical laterality pattern of control subjects. Therefore, it remains to be elucidated whether the laterality patterns of non-clinical schizotypy individuals are in line with those observed in a healthy population, or those observed in patients with schizophrenia. In an attempt to examine the contribution of both hemispheres to language processing within this population, Nunn and Peters (2001) employed a range of tasks that assess the linguistic abilities of both the left and right hemispheres. Findings revealed that right hemisphere dysfunction was the main predictor of high schizotypy within the non-clinical sample. Thus, it appears that in line with schizophrenia, dysfunctions of both hemispheres are present in schizotypy. Despite this right hemisphere deficit, lateralisation of emotion has seldom been studied within this population. The paucity of research in this domain becomes even more surprising in view of numerous reports of emotion recognition impairments in schizotypy (Aguirre et al., 2008 and Phillips et al., 2008).