Center for Psychiatric Research, Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, Beijing 100096, China.
Neurosci Lett. 2013 Sep 27;552:46-51. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2013.07.046. Epub 2013 Aug 7.
This study investigated eye movement differences during facial emotion recognition between 101 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 101 controls. Independent of facial emotion, patients with schizophrenia processed facial information inefficiently; they showed significantly more direct fixations that lasted longer to interest areas (IAs), such as the eyes, nose, mouth, and nasion. The total fixation number, mean fixation duration, and total fixation duration were significantly increased in schizophrenia. Additionally, the number of fixations per second to IAs (IA fixation number/s) was significantly lower in schizophrenia. However, no differences were found between the two groups in the proportion of number of fixations to IAs or total fixation number (IA fixation number %). Interestingly, the negative symptoms of patients with schizophrenia negatively correlated with IA fixation number %. Both groups showed significantly greater attention to positive faces. Compared to controls, patients with schizophrenia exhibited significantly more fixations directed to IAs, a higher total fixation number, and lower IA fixation number/s for negative faces. These results indicate that facial processing efficiency is significantly decreased in schizophrenia, but no difference was observed in processing strategy. Patients with schizophrenia may have special deficits in processing negative faces, and negative symptoms may affect visual scanning parameters.
本研究调查了 101 例慢性精神分裂症患者和 101 例对照者在识别面部表情时的眼动差异。与面部表情无关，精神分裂症患者对面部信息的处理效率较低；他们对感兴趣区域（如眼睛、鼻子、嘴巴和鼻根）的注视时间更长，注视次数也更多。精神分裂症患者的总注视次数、平均注视持续时间和总注视持续时间均显著增加。此外，精神分裂症患者对感兴趣区域的每秒注视次数（IA 注视次数/s）显著降低。然而，两组在注视感兴趣区域的次数比例或总注视次数（IA 注视次数%）方面没有差异。有趣的是，精神分裂症患者的阴性症状与 IA 注视次数呈负相关。两组均对正性面孔表现出明显更多的注意。与对照组相比，精神分裂症患者对 IA 的注视次数更多，总注视次数更高，对负性面孔的 IA 注视次数/s 更低。这些结果表明，精神分裂症患者的面部处理效率显著降低，但处理策略没有差异。精神分裂症患者可能在处理负性面孔方面存在特殊缺陷，阴性症状可能影响视觉扫描参数。
