Gaze discrimination in patients with schizophrenia: preliminary report

The authors administered a gaze discrimination task to 24 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 25 subjects with no psychiatric history. Each subject was shown slides and asked, "Is the person in the slide looking directly at you?" Patients with schizophrenia were more likely than comparison subjects to perceive the person in the slide as looking at them when the person was looking away. Because there is evidence that gaze discrimination performance involves the superior temporal sulcus region of the brain and this region has been implicated in theories about the pathogenesis of schizophrenia, further study of the gaze discrimination task seems indicated.