As with many other ERP studies in schizophrenia, the current sample was heterogeneous with respect to meeting specific DSM-IV criteria. However, the unusually large sample of patients (n = 57) strongly suggests that the reported findings should generalize to (right-handed) individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, although it will be of interest to follow-up the current report with more detailed analyses that take symptoms and subtypes of schizophrenia into account. As the sample also included a large number of unmedicated participants (n = 22), it is unlikely that the observed recognition memory deficits for words and faces, as well as the associated abnormalities of electrophysiologic old/new effects, were caused by antipsychotic medication (cf. Barch, 2005), but a moderating influence of drug treatment on cognition and brain function cannot be ruled out. Despite a larger proportion of individuals acquiring English as a second language among patients, this group difference failed to account for the observed task-related differences of left parietal ERP old/new effects between patients and controls, which is in accordance with other ERP and fMRI evidence indicating that age of language
