The authors administered a gaze discrimination task to 24 patients with
chronic schizophrenia and 25 subjects with no psychiatric history. Each
subject was shown slides and asked, "Is the person in the slide looking
directly at you?" Patients with schizophrenia were more likely than
comparison subjects to perceive the person in the slide as looking at them
when the person was looking away. Because there is evidence that gaze
discrimination performance involves the superior temporal sulcus region of
the brain and this region has been implicated in theories about the
pathogenesis of schizophrenia, further study of the gaze discrimination
task seems indicated.Abstract Teaser