Schizophrenic (N=55) and normal (N=53) subjects were presented with sentences and series of random digits. Each test sentence and number series contained a dichotically presented click, and the subject was to locate the click with regard to the test string. In one experiment, sentence and number strings were alternated; in a second experiment, the different strings were recorded in blocks. Results showed that the predictive association of correct localizations in number series with correct localizations in sentences was from 2 to 6 times greater for the schizophrenic listener than for the normal subject. This suggests that limitations in sensory (i.e., nonsyntactic) information processing are an important factor in the schizophrenic’s impaired sentence decoding.