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Attention in schizophrenia. Signal detection in the visual periphery
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
|December 1, 1981
Summary
Schizophrenia patients, especially chronic non-paranoid types, show deficits in early visual processing. This suggests impaired preattentive visual systems contribute to the disorder.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Previous research indicates visual preattentive processing deficits in schizophrenia.
- Understanding the specific information processing level and structural basis of these deficits is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate signal detection in the visual periphery to understand information processing deficits in schizophrenia.
- To explore potential structural underpinnings of visual processing impairments.
Main Methods:
- Tested acute and chronic schizophrenics (paranoid/non-paranoid) and controls on a visual task.
- Experimentally controlled eye and head movements during foveal and peripheral target detection.
Main Results:
- Chronic and non-paranoid schizophrenics exhibited significantly lower peripheral target detection sensitivity.
- Paranoid subjects showed more conservative criteria in difficult conditions.
- No systematic motivational differences were found based on trial validity or response latency.
Conclusions:
- Sensitivity differences are attributed to deficits in early preattentive visual processes.
- Non-paranoid schizophrenia performance suggests potential midbrain activity differences in ambient visual information processing.