Comparison of Eye-Movement Patterns in Schizophrenic and Normal Adults during Examination of Facial Affect Displays

Patients with schizophrenia are known to have deficits in facial affect recognition. Subjects were 25 schizophrenic patients and 25 normal subjects who were shown pairs of slides of laughing faces and asked to compare the intensity of laughter in the two slides. Eye movements were recorded using an infrared scleral reflection technique. Normal subjects efficiently compared the same facial features in the two slides, examining the eyes and mouth, important areas for recognizing laughter, for a longer time than other regions of the face. Schizophrenic patients spent less time examining the eyes and mouth and often examined other regions of the face or areas other than the face. Similar results were obtained for the number of fixation points. That schizophrenic patients may have employed an inefficient strategy with few effective eye movements in facial comparison and recognition may help to explain the deficits in facial recognition observed in schizophrenic patients.