Abstract: Some cognitive deficits are specifically trait-related to schizophrenia and are important for early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of this mental disorder. This article reviews the literature on deficits of schizophrenic patients in auditory masking tasks, auditory attention, and auditory working memory, and particularly put the emphasis on the vulnerability of speech recognition to masking stimuli, especially informational masking stimuli. This article will facilitates both the understanding of the etiology of schizophrenia and the explosions of new methods for early diagnosis and treatment of this mental disorder.

Key words: schizophrenia, speech recognition, energetic masking, informational masking, working memory, first-episode schizophrenics, chronic schizophrenics