Gender differences in attentive bias during social information processing in schizophrenia : An eye-tracking study

Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V..

Interpersonal communication is a specific scenario in which patients with psychiatric symptoms may manifest different behavioral patterns due to psychopathology. This was a pilot study by eye-tracking technology to investigate attentive bias during social information processing in schizophrenia. We enrolled 39 patients with schizophrenia from Shanghai Mental Health Center and 42 age-, gender- and education-matched healthy controls. The experiment was a free-viewing task, in which pictures with three types of degree of interpersonal communication were shown. We used two measures: 1) initial fixation duration, 2) total gaze duration. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was used to determine symptom severity. The ratio of first fixation duration for pictures of communicating vs. non-communicating persons was significantly lower in patients than in controls (Mann-Whitney U = 512, p = 0.004). We found that male patients showed a significantly lower ratio of first fixation duration than male controls (Mann-Whitney U = 190, p = 0.028), while it was marginally lower in female patients than female controls (Mann-Whitney U = 77, p = 0.057). The ratio of first fixation duration for pictures of communicating persons vs. no persons was negatively correlated with PANSS negative symptoms in male patients (rho = -0.458, p = 0.024). In contrast, it was negatively correlated with PANSS positive symptoms in female patients (-0.701, p = 0.004). These findings suggest altered attentive bias during social information processing with a pattern of avoidance at first sight towards pictures of communicating persons in schizophrenia. It is worthwhile to note that social functioning impairment is associated with the severity of symptoms.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2021

Erschienen:

2021

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:66

Enthalten in:

Asian journal of psychiatry - 66(2021) vom: 01. Dez., Seite 102871

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Zhu, Yikang [VerfasserIn]
Xu, Lihua [VerfasserIn]
Wang, Wenzheng [VerfasserIn]
Guo, Qian [VerfasserIn]
Chen, Shan [VerfasserIn]
Zhang, Caidi [VerfasserIn]
Zhang, Tianhong [VerfasserIn]
Hu, Xiaochen [VerfasserIn]
Enck, Paul [VerfasserIn]
Li, Chunbo [VerfasserIn]
Sheng, Jianhua [VerfasserIn]
Wang, Jijun [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Eye tracking
Gender difference
Journal Article
Schizophrenia
Social information processing

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 19.11.2021

Date Revised 19.11.2021

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102871

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM331604965