Dichotic listening in college students who report auditory hallucinations.

College students were placed in 2 groups, hallucinators and nonhallucinators, on the basis of their responses to a verbal hallucinations questionnaire. Both groups were given a consonant-vowel version of a Dichotic Listening Test under 3 conditions: nonforced, forced-right, and forced-left. When hallucinators were instructed to attend to the left ear stimuli (forced-left condition), they had fewer correct responses to right ear syllables than did nonhallucinators. This resulted in a left ear advantage for hallucinators. When nonhallucinators were instructed to attend to the left ear, they maintained a right ear advantage. Results suggest that auditory hallucinations in college students are associated with differences in hemispheric functioning.