The present study did not provide support for the hypothesis that different response requirements during simple auditory target detection tasks (i.e., using a button press or silent count) differentially affect amplitude or asymmetry of N2 and P3 components in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls,3,12–16 and is thereby consistent with the P3 findings reported by Ford et al.26 This study systematically compared the effects of left or right button press versus silent count on all subcomponents of the N2/P3 complex in a fully-crossed, within-subjects design in schizophrenia. While response mode impacted on all subcomponents of the N2/P3 complex, with most of the modulations originating from medial-central sites and attributable to motor activities associated with a button press, the response-related effects on N2 and P3 were highly comparable among patients and controls, which is in close agreement with previous findings.10,26 Consistent with numerous prior ERP studies in schizophrenia,1,2 schizophrenic patients showed bilateral reduction in amplitudes of sink and source activity underlying the N2 and P3 components, that is, the defining electrophysiologic correlates of tone discrimination tasks. Notably, patients had marked reductions of
