Visual interaction in psychiatric patients: a review.

Abstract

During the last decade, social psychologists and ethologists have become increasingly interested in the non-verbal elements of social interaction, as recent reviews testify (Argyle, 1969; Vine, 1970; Hinde, 1972). Research into facial expression, visual interaction, posture, gesture, non-verbal aspects of speech, etc., has considerable clinical implications, but carefully conducted investigations of non-verbal social interaction in psychiatric patients have been rare (Grant, 1972). The purpose of this paper is to review the evidence concerned with one aspect of social behaviour in psychiatric patients, namely visual interaction, in an attempt to summarize the current state of knowledge and to suggest ways in which research in this area might develop.