Eye movement features in visual search in schizophrenia patients and impact factors
WANG Peng
CHENG zhe
HE Yi-qun
Abstract：Objective To research eye movement features and impact factors in visual search in patients with schizophrenia .Methods One hundred and twenty schizophrenia patients were assigned to research group and 120 healthy volunteers to control group .Eye movement data were recorded by using Eyelink 2000 eye tracker when they were performing three tasks:searching for numbers , connecting the numbers by line and doing labyrinth games . Before the experiments , negative and negative symptoms were assessed using positive and negative syndrome scale ( PANSS) in the research group .Results In performing the three tasks , stimulating duration of searching for num-bers , connecting the numbers by line and fixation time were significantly higher in the research group than in the con -trol group ( P<0.05 or <0.01 ) , but the blink times in the task of doing labyrinth games was significantly lower in the research group than in the control group ( P<0.05 ) .Correlation analysis revealed that disturbance of attention factor of PANSS was positively related to the blink times in the task of doing labyrinth games , the response absence factor to times of saccade in the task of connecting the numbers by line , and the depressive factor to saccade ampli-tude when doing labyrinth games;paranoid factor was negatively correlated to the saccade amplitude when searching for numbers, recruitment factor to the saccade amplitude and stimulating duration and the total number of times of fix -ation in the task of connecting the numbers by line .Conclusion Patients with schizophrenia showed anormaly eye movement features , thus revealing the possible damage to attention function , thinking flexibility , inference ability and problem-solving ability .These neurological damages may be associated with certain clinical symptoms , hint its rela-tion to pathophysiological process of schizophrenia .
Keywords：SchizophreniaVisual searchEye movementAttention functionCognitive functionPositive and negative symptoms scale
Publication Date：2014-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：4( 603-606 )