Eye movement research with schizophrenic patients and normal controls using corneal reflection-pupil center measurement.

Abstract

The eye movements of 20 partially remitted outpatient schizophrenics (ICD 9), for the most part receiving neuroleptic maintenance medication, and 20 normal controls were recorded using corneal reflection-pupil center measurement. Performance was investigated on the basis of widely varied measurement parameters during a fixation task and a visual search task (list of letters). Psychopathological data were additionally recorded for the group of patients by means of self and observer ratings, current social adjustment, and neuroleptic dosage. The schizophrenic patients showed the tendency to perform more poorly than the normal controls in the eye movement parameters recorded, and there was marked variation in performance within the group of schizophrenic patients. In particular, various abnormalities in fixation performance were connected differentially with individual psychopathological syndromes and neuroleptic dosage. Connections between fixation performance and search performance were found only within the group of patients. They are interpreted as an indicator of disturbed interhemispheric coordination in schizophrenics. Based upon specific pupillary findings one concludes that the processing load imposed on the attentional system by the search task is different for various schizophrenic subgroups.