Role of visual integration in gaze perception and emotional intelligence in schizophrenia.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate a wide range of social cognitive deficits that significantly compromise functioning. Early visual processing is frequently disrupted in schizophrenia, and growing evidence suggests a role of perceptual dysfunctions in socioemotional functioning in the disorder. This study examined visual integration (the ability to effectively integrate individual, local visual features into a holistic representation), a target construct of basic perception identified by the Cognitive Neuroscience Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia initiative, and its relationship with eye- contact perception and emotional intelligence in schizophrenia. METHODS: Twenty-nine participants with schizophrenia (SCZ) and 23 healthy controls (HC) completed tasks measuring visual integration (Coherent Motion Task, Contour Integration Task), an eye-contact perception task, and a measure of emotional intelligence. RESULTS: SCZ participants showed compromised visual integration as suggested by poorer performance on the Contour Integration Task relative to HC. Visual integration was a significant predictor of eye-contact perception and emotional intelligence among SCZ. The amounts of variances in these 2 social cognitive areas accounted for by visual integration were comparable to and overlapped with those accounted for by the diagnosis of schizophrenia. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with schizophrenia showed compromised visual integration, and this may play a significant role in the observed deficits in higher level processing of social information in the disorder.

SUBMITTER: Tso IF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3984511 | biostudies-other | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other