Oculomotor activity as an indicator of disturbances in perception and programming in patients with schizotypal disorder

Abstract

Objective. To consider the patterns of stimuli analysis and task execution in conditions of voluntary and involuntary attention in people with schizotypal disorder from the psychopathological and psychological points of view. Material and methods. A total of 40 subjects were examined including 16 patients diagnosed with schizotypal disorder, 13 with personality disorders and 11 without psychiatric pathology (controls). In the first part of the study, subjects looked upon various static images without any instructions, followed by a test with antisaccade task in vertical and horizontal directions; the last task duplicated the first, but the subjects were asked to remember the presented images as best as possible. Results. In the group of patients with schizotypal disorder, an increase in average and maximum fixation variance, its greater variation between images, and a decrease in the scanpath length were found. These differences were associated with the intentional focus of attention and several indicators of the accomplish efficiency of the antisaccade task. Conclusion. The changes in fixative eye movements observed in individuals with schizotypal disorder indicate violations of information selectivity and construction of an image of future action. Assumptions about inadequacy of their perceptual strategy to the simultaneous one and the primacy of the sense-bearing (motivational) violations in the programming of saccadic activity were made.