Exercise 1 requires users to make gradually more difficult distinctions
between frequency modulation (FM) “sweeps” of auditory
stimuli increasing or decreasing in frequency (Figure 1), as
the sweeps become progressively faster and are separated by
shorter interstimulus intervals. Exercise 2 trains the subjects to
distinguish, with increasing accuracy and speed, between two
difficult-to-distinguish phonemes or open syllables (syllables
ending in a long vowel), using synthesized speech. Exercises 3
TABLE 1. Baseline Characteristics of Patients With Schizophrenia Who Received Computerized Auditory Training and Patients
Who Played Computer Games
Variable
Auditory Training (N=29) Computer Games (N=26) Student’s t Test
Mean SD Mean SD t df p
Age (years) 42.86 10.07 45.31 9.39 0.93 53 0.36
Education (years) 13.48 2.01 13.27 2.20 –0.38 53 0.71
WAIS IQ 103.55 13.21 100.46 17.77 –0.73 53 0.47
Dose of antipsychotic medication
(chlorpromazine-equivalent mg/day) 407.93 460.40 469.23 484.11 0.48 53 0.63
Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale
total score 2.33 0.73 2.29 0.46 0.20 53 0.84
Quality of Life Scale total score 3.26 0.95 3.00 0.20 1.03 53 0.31
Am J Psychiatry 166:7, July 2009 807
ajp.psychiatryonline.org
and 4 focus on the accurate identification of increasingly long arrays
of open and closed syllables in spatial and sequential contexts.
These first four exercises train the user to become more efficient
in the processing of basic auditory information, and they
also heavily engage working memory. Exercise 5 engages both
working memory and verbal learning as the user listens to a sequence
of verbal instructions and carries them out. In exercise 6,
brief conversational narrative is presented, and the user must remember
increasingly more elusive details.