Abstract
Background: Schizophrenia patients exhibit deficient processing of perceptual and cognitive information. However, it is not well-understood how basic perceptual deficits contribute to higher level cognitive problems in this mental disorder. Perception of biological motion, a motion-based cognitive recognition task, relies on both basic visual motion processing and social cognitive processing, thus providing a useful paradigm to evaluate the potentially hierarchical relationship between these two levels of information processing.Methods: In this study, we designed a biological motion paradigm in which basic visual motion signals were manipulated systematically by incorporating different levels of motion noise. We measured the performances of schizophrenia patients (n = 21) and healthy controls (n = 22) in this biological motion perception task, as well as in coherent motion detection, theory of mind, and a widely used biological motion recognition task.Results: Schizophrenia patients performed the biological motion perception task with significantly lower accuracy than healthy controls when perceptual signals were moderately degraded by noise. A more substantial degradation of perceptual signals, through using additional noise, impaired biological motion perception in both groups. Performance levels on biological motion recognition, coherent motion detection and theory of mind tasks were also reduced in patients.Conclusion: The results from the motion-noise biological motion paradigm indicate that in the presence of visual motion noise, the processing of biological motion information in schizophrenia is deficient. Combined with the results of poor basic visual motion perception (coherent motion task) and biological motion recognition, the association between basic motion signals and biological motion perception suggests a need to incorporate the improvement of visual motion perception in social cognitive remediation.
Highlights
Schizophrenia is characterized by deficits at multiple levels of information processing, including perception and cognition
Schizophrenia patients performed the biological motion perception task with significantly lower accuracy than healthy controls when perceptual signals were moderately degraded by noise
Combined with the results of poor basic visual motion perception and biological motion recognition, the association between basic motion signals and biological motion perception suggests a need to incorporate the improvement of visual motion perception in social cognitive remediation
Summary
Schizophrenia is characterized by deficits at multiple levels of information processing, including perception and cognition. Within the domain of visual perception, a large body of research indicates that patients with schizophrenia experience global dysfunction, within the dorsal visual pathway (Butler and Javitt, 2005; Butler et al, 2008, 2012; Chen, 2011; Silverstein and Keane, 2011) They exhibit prolonged visual backward masking effects (Green et al, 1994), poor velocity discrimination (Chen et al, 1999; Kim et al, 2006; Clementz et al, 2007), and deficient global motion perception (Stuve et al, 1997; Chen et al, 2003; Green et al, 2009). Perception of biological motion, a motion-based cognitive recognition task, relies on both basic visual motion processing and social cognitive processing, providing a useful paradigm to evaluate the potentially hierarchical relationship between these two levels of information processing
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