Impairment of gaze-directed spatial coding in recent-onset schizophrenia

Abstract

Patients with schizophrenia show deficits in core cognitive functions as well as in social cognition. The aim of the present study was to test whether deficits in social cognition influence nonsocial, "cold", cognition. Thirty-five patients with recent-onset schizophrenia (SC) and 30 healthy controls (HC) performed a Simon task with social and simple geometric stimuli. We investigated whether the Simon effect, the slowing of reaction times produced by stimulus incongruities in the task-irrelevant spatial domain, differs between patients and healthy participants as a function of the social nature of the cues. The Simon effect was generated by a schematic drawing of human eyes (social cues) or rectangles (nonsocial cues). Overall, patients had longer reaction times than HC. In the eye-like condition, the Simon effect was significantly stronger for HC than for SC. In HC the Simon effect was significantly stronger in the eye-like than in the rectangle condition. In patients, the Simon effect did not differ significantly between both conditions. Thus, the influence of social cues was greatly reduced in the patient group. Current psychopathology or antipsychotic treatment did not influence results. The present study supports earlier findings of altered processing of schematic social cues in patients with schizophrenia, especially when gaze is task-irrelevant.

Social Preference and Glutamatergic Dysfunction: Underappreciated Prerequisites for Social Dysfunction in Schizophrenia

“…For example, whereas healthy controls identified social stimuli better than nonsocial stimuli, schizophrenia patients did not show this benefit [23, 24]. Healthy controls were able to shift their attention toward both social (i.e., gaze) and directional nonsocial cues (e.g., arrows); however, patients shifted attention only toward nonsocial cues, not toward social cues [25, 26]. In a study of recognition memory of social and nonsocial stimuli [27] healthy controls showed better memory on social than nonsocial stimuli, but patients showed equivalent memory for both types of stimuli, failing to benefit from social information.…”

Neurobehavioral Indices of Gaze Perception are Associated with Social Cognition across Schizophrenia Patients and Healthy Controls

“…Understanding aberrant gaze processing in SZ-which is characterized by features like reduced perceptual sensitivity, increased self-referential bias, impaired spatial coding, and abnormal topdown neural circuitry-can shed light on mechanisms underlying specific symptoms such as paranoia and delusions of reference [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] . The present study aimed to elucidate neural underpinnings of gaze perception, their disruption in SZ, and associations with broader social cognitive functioning.…”

Neurobehavioral indices of gaze perception are associated with social cognition across schizophrenia patients and healthy controls.

“…Understanding aberrant gaze processing in SZ—which is characterized by reduced perceptual precision, increased self-referential bias, and impaired spatial coding—may shed light on mechanisms underlying symptoms such as paranoia and delusions of reference (Abbott et al, 2018; C. Hooker & Park, 2005; Röder et al, 2015; Tso et al, 2012, 2014; Tso, Taylor, et al, 2021). The present study aimed to elucidate neural underpinnings of gaze perception, their disruption in SZ, and their associations with social cognition.…”