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Saccadic and attentional abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia
- Source :
- Psychological Medicine. 28:1091-1100
- Publication Year :
- 1998
- Publisher :
- Cambridge University Press (CUP), 1998.
-
Abstract
- Background. Abnormal performance on the antisaccade task suggests that patients with schizophrenia have difficulty with the inhibition of reflexive attentional shifts. The aim of the study was to investigate whether deficits in the inhibition of reflexive attentional shifts were specific to the oculomotor modality or whether they could also occur when attentional shifts were made without eye movements (e.g. covert attentional shifts).Methods. Fifteen medicated patients with chronic schizophrenia and 15 matched controls performed the antisaccade task and the covert orientating task (COVAT) where the probability of targets appearing at the same location of a peripheral cue was varied so that voluntary and reflexive orientating systems had the same goal (80% probability of target and cued condition) or opposite goals (20%probability of target at cued location). A condition where only reflexive orientating was initiated was also included (50% probability of target at cued location). For each of these conditions the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) varied between 150 and 350 ms.Results. Patients with schizophrenia showed normal latency and accuracy for visually guided saccades but increased error rates and latency on the antisaccade task. For the COVAT, patients with schizophrenia were unable to use voluntary orientating strategies to inhibit reflexive shifts of covert attention. On conditions where only reflexive orientating was required or when the goals of the reflexive and voluntary orientating systems were the same, patients with schizophrenia showed normal performance.Conclusions. These results suggest the reflexive orientating mode is normal in patients with chronic schizophrenia. However, these patients have a reduced ability to utilize the voluntary orientating mode to control or inhibit reflexive orientating. This impairment of voluntary control is evident for both overt and covert attentional shifts.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Psychosis
medicine.medical_specialty
genetic structures
Schizophrenia (object-oriented programming)
Fixation, Ocular
Audiology
behavioral disciplines and activities
Reflex
Reaction Time
Saccades
medicine
Humans
In patient
Attention
Biological Psychiatry
Applied Psychology
Cued speech
business.industry
Eye movement
Stimulus onset asynchrony
Middle Aged
Visual spatial attention
medicine.disease
Saccadic masking
Inhibition, Psychological
Psychiatry and Mental health
Fixation (visual)
Schizophrenia
Visual Perception
Female
Schizophrenic Psychology
Cues
Visual Fields
business
Antisaccade task
Psychology
psychological phenomena and processes
Cognitive psychology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14698978 and 00332917
- Volume :
- 28
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Psychological Medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1b0522a029f51fc03443be91aad93d05