Korean J Schizophr Res.  2018 Oct;21(2):37-42. 10.16946/kjsr.2018.21.2.37.

Association of Abnormal Eye Gaze Pattern with Magical Ideation during Reality Evaluation in Patients with Schizophrenia

• Lee JS
• Kim MW
• Hong YJ
• Kim JJ

• KMID: 2423025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.16946/kjsr.2018.21.2.37

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Magical ideation refers to belief in forms of causation that by conventional standards are invalid, and is considered to be one of prodromal psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between magical ideation and eye gaze pattern in patients with schizophrenia.
METHODS
Eye gaze data were recorded in 23 patients with schizophrenia and 23 healthy controls while performing the reality evaluation task, in which participants should judge the realness of real or unreal pictures.
RESULTS
Compared to healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia showed decreased fixation, saccade and area of interest (AOI) fixation counts, and reduced scanpath length. Magical Ideation Scale score in patients with schizophrenia showed negative correlation with the scanpath length in the real condition and the AOI fixation count in the unreal condition.
CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia show restricted visual scanning during reality evaluation, and their restricted visual scanning may play an important role in the magical ideation.

Keyword

Eye gaze; Magical ideation; Reality evaluation; Schizophrenia; Visual scanning

MeSH Terms

Humans
Magic*
Saccades
Schizophrenia*

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Examples of stimuli and analysis in the reality evaluation task. Real pictures were composed of objects (e.g., human, animal, house, furniture) with appropriate backgrounds, while unreal pictures were composed of distorted objects with appropriate backgrounds or of intact objects with inappropriate backgrounds (A). The area of interest (AOI) was defined as the main object in the real or unreal pictures (B). Examples of gaze distribution in the patient and control group were displayed in the heat map (C), which shows fixation counts related to the color scale between blue (less counts) and red (most counts).

• 

  Fig. 2 Results of the correlational analyses. The Magical Ideation Scale score was significantly correlated with the scanpath length in the real condition and the AOI fixation count in the unreal condition in the patient group, while it did not correlate with eye gaze data in the control group. * : p<0.05.

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