A promising line of research has recently implicated various neurophysiologic measures obtained during active and passive auditory paradigms as potential tools in predicting transition to psychosis (Atkinson et al., 2012; Bodatsch et al., 2011; Frommann et al., 2008; Higuchi et al., 2013; Jahshan et al., 2012; Koh et al., 2011; Murphy et al., 2013; Shaikh et al., 2012; van der Stelt et al., 2005; van Tricht et al., 2010). Interestingly, while cognitive impairments in schizophrenia are typically studied with visual paradigms (e.g., Barch & Smith, 2008; Barch et al., 2009, 2012), neurophysiologic abnormalities are often more common or more pronounced in the auditory than visual modality (e.g., Egan et al., 1994; Ford et al., 1994; Ford, 1999; Kayser et al., 2009; Pfefferbaum et al., 1989). Deficits in auditory mismatch negativity (MMN), a pre-attentive measure of auditory change detection, have rather consistently been found in schizophrenia (e.g., Javitt et al., 2008; Michie, 2001), and this electrophysiologic measure has been considered a promising biomarker candidate to indicate transition to psychosis (e.g., Luck et al., 2011).
