Introduction
Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) are characterized by abnormal
sensory and perceptual processing. An enduring question is the puzzling
dichotomy between schizophrenia patients’ subjective sensory experiences
which contrast with neurobiological and behavioral measures of sensory
responses. Individuals with SSD tend to exhibit hyporeactivebehavioral responses such as higher, less sensitive,
thresholds in auditory and visual discrimination tasks (Ramsay et al.,
2020; Todd et al., 2003). Indeed, hyporeactivity to sensory input is a
distinguishing trait of schizophrenia and a putative biomarker of
disease progression (Javitt et al., 2018; Koshiyama et al., 2020).
However, the subjective experience of SSD individuals is not captured by
the hyporeactive response account. Instead, people with schizophrenia
and SSD report sensory overload, or sensory flooding, consistent with
sensory hyperexcitability (Bunney et al., 1999; Micoulaud-Franchi
et al., 2012). These conflicting observations describe a mismatch
between objective and subjective behavioral responses to sensory
stimuli in individuals with SSD.