Visual processing of social and non-social stimuli in schizophrenia: investigation of the links to positive and negative symptoms.

Introduction: Schizophrenia (SCZ) spectrum is characterised by aberrant processing of social cues. However, little is known about the specific stages of visual attention and their connection to subclinical and clinical symptoms in psychosis. This study aimed to investigate the visual processing of social and non-social parts of naturalistic scenes, and its link to positive and negative symptoms.

Methods: Employing eye-tracking and a free-viewing paradigm, we tested 27 individuals with SCZ and 28 matched controls and compared them on measures capturing both attention orientation (first fixation latency, velocity of entry saccade) and attention maintenance (duration of duration, number of saccades).

Results: We did not find significant differences in attentional processing between schizophrenia and the control group. However, we observed that the severity of positive symptoms was associated with a delayed attention orientation toward the social aspects of the scenes, whereas negative symptoms were correlated with delayed attention orientation toward non-social contexts.

Conclusion: Our results reveal distinct relationship profiles between positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia and early stages of visual attention to social vs. non-social stimuli.