The analysis of eye-movements in the judgment of enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles in people with schizophrenia

Abstract

Research has consistently shown that people with schizophrenia have impairments in emotional facial recognition. This deficit has been associated with irregular visual scanning patterns of the face. Since people have the ability to control the expression of emotion that they display, the communication process becomes more complex. In fact, in addition to processing the emotion expressed, decoders must pay attention to the subtle details about the sincerity of the expression. The goal of the current study was to conduct a systematic examination of the ability and perceptual-attentional mechanisms used in distinguishing enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles in individuals with schizophrenia. More specifically, the activation of the orbicularis oculi muscle and symmetry was examined. Sixteen individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and sixteen control (no diagnosis of schizophrenia) were asked to judge the sincerity of smiles while their eye movements were recorded. Individuals with schizophrenia were less accurate than controls in judging the no-cheek smile as a non-enjoyment smile. This difficulty could be explained by their bias towards the mouth. Furthermore, like their healthy counterparts, individuals with schizophrenia showed difficulty with the judgement of asymmetric smiles. However, while perceptual processing can be ruled out as an explanation for the difficulty suggesting interpretation problems in control individuals, the former explanation cannot be discredited for individuals with schizophrenia.