EEG was recorded from bilateral frontal, central, temporal, and parietal leads (referenced to or transformed to a vertex reference) during cognitive activity in 13 normal controls, ten schizophrenics, and eight patients with affective disorders. All subjects were male and right-handed, and patients had been free of psychotropic medications for at least 2 weeks. A verbal (copying text) and spatial (copying shapes) task were matched for stimulus presentation and motor output. The number and rate of correct responses were recorded for each normal subject and 11 of the patients. As reported by others, normal subjects manifested a significant difference in alpha asymmetry between the tasks, reflecting relatively greater alpha suppression over the left hemisphere during the verbal task compared to the spatial task (P less than 0.05). This effect was not significant in either patient group. However, analysis of seven schizophrenics after neuroleptic treatment revealed robust effects of task on alpha asymmetry similar to that present in the normal control group (P less than 0.02). The results suggest that abnormal task-related brain lateralization may be present in untreated schizophrenic patients, but it is state dependent and does not reflect permanent patterns of brain organization.