common words or unknown faces, Kayser et al. (2010b) investigated whether the visual recognition memory deficits in schizophrenics were restricted to only words. This study involved the episodic memory effect, also known as ‘old/new’ effect, as indexed by an early mid-frontal negativity (FN400) reflecting item familiarity as well as a late P3-like left-parietal positivity (parietal P600) indexing explicit memory-retrieval processes. Results showed that CSD activations of the P600-like component were markedly reduced in schizophrenic patients over the left lateral temporo-parietal region for words, however, not for faces. This study was motivated by their previous CSD/PCA study (Kayser et al., 2009), where old/new effects for words were investigated in schizophrenic patients using the continuous word recognition memory paradigm involving the serial presentation of words in both auditory and visual modalities, and found more prominent reductions (of left-parietal P3 sources, vertex N2 sinks, and mid-frontal sink at 50-ms post-response) in the auditory modality. Further, in order to understand neurophysiological processes underlying olfactory dysfunction in schizophrenia, Kayser et al. (2010c) employed a nose-referenced EEG recording in a sensory detection study. This involved 200 ms presentations of olfactory stimuli (hydrogen sulfide) to which participants responded whether they perceived a low or high intensity odor.
