•We tested for reduced visual attention to salient facial features in schizophrenia.•Visual attention did not differ between schizophrenia and healthy controls.•Visual attention mediated between ...paranoia and correct emotion recognition.•The study supports a vigilance-avoidance hypothesis of paranoia.
The vigilance-avoidance hypothesis of paranoia states that in paranoia visual attention is shifted away from threat-related stimuli. This may be an explanation for reduced scanning of salient facial features in psychosis and subsequently impaired emotion recognition. Here, we explored whether higher levels of paranoia would predict reduced visual attention to salient facial features and impaired emotion recognition and whether reduced visual attention to salient facial features mediates the association between paranoia and errors in emotion recognition.
Participants with schizophrenia (SZ, n = 22) and healthy controls (HC, n = 19) completed questionnaire assessments of paranoia and negative symptoms and conducted an emotion recognition task comprised of dynamic facial stimuli. Additionally, visual attention (number of fixations) to salient facial features was assessed using eye-tracking.
SZ made more errors in affect recognition than HC. Visual attention to salient facial features did not differ between SZ and HC but significantly mediated the significant association between paranoia and errors in the emotion recognition task in the complete sample. Negative symptoms also predicted errors in emotion recognition but this association was not mediated by visual attention.
Our findings are in line with the avoidance-assumption of a vigilance-avoidance hypothesis of paranoia, in which correct facial emotion recognition is prevented due to an avoidance of salient facial features.
Psychotic symptoms have been shown to be associated with numerous social factors, such as migration and urban upbringing, of which one plausible common component is loneliness. This suggests a ...relationship between loneliness and positive psychotic symptoms. According to current cognitive models of psychosis, the relationship between loneliness and positive symptoms is likely to be explained by affective states. The current study examined the cross-sectional relationship between loneliness, depression, and positive symptoms in four separate community samples (combined
N
= 766) with regression based mediation analysis and network analysis. The results showed that depression completely mediated the relationship between loneliness and positive symptoms in three out of four samples. Partial mediation was found in one sample. Network analysis revealed that loneliness, depression, and positive symptoms clustered separately and that there was a unique connection between loneliness and items that assess paranoid beliefs, in the sense that loneliness was not found to be connected to other psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations. As expected, loneliness is related to positive symptoms and depression played a strong role in explaining the association. Thus, early interventions of psychosis that target loneliness are likely to be beneficial, especially if these interventions additionally target depression. Furthermore, the specific connection of loneliness and paranoid beliefs supports the theory that specific adversity leads to specific psychotic symptoms.
Visual attention to threat-related facial expressions possibly contributes to delusion formation and maintenance and may serve as a vulnerability marker. The aim of the present study was to examine ...visual attention to threat-related facial expressions using dynamic stimuli in people with differing levels of delusion-proneness. We expected that threat-relevant facial expressions would attract more foveal attention compared to neutral faces. Additionally, we hypothesized that more delusion-prone individuals would show foveal avoidance and that this avoidance would occur particularly in the visual processing of threat-related faces. In a quasi-experimental design we categorized our sample by the paranoia checklist (PCL) into a high-PCL (
n
= 25) and low-PCL (
n
= 30) group. The participants’ task was to view emotional facial expressions in validated film sequences while eye movements were measured. A mixed ANOVA for the number of fixations and equivalent non-parametric tests for fixation time were conducted. Both groups spent significantly more time viewing relevant features in threat-related faces compared to neutral faces. A significant main effect for group indicated fewer fixations in the high-PCL group compared to the low-PCL group for all faces. A significant Group × Affect interaction indicated that the number of fixations differed between the high-PCL group and the low-PCL group depending on whether the faces displayed neutral or threat-related expressions. The findings suggest that higher delusion-proneness is already associated with a deviant style of visually attending to facial expressions even in people who do not have a clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia. This style may thus be a vulnerability marker for psychosis.
Abstract Background and objectives A promising candidate for a vulnerability indicator for psychosis is the restricted scanpath. Restricted scanning of social stimuli, such as faces, might also ...contribute to misinterpretations of facial expressions and thus increase the likelihood of delusional interpretations. Moreover, similar to other vulnerability indicators of psychosis, scanpaths may be susceptible to stress. Thus, we hypothesized that scanpath restriction would increase as a function of delusion-proneness, stress and their interaction. Methods Participants were asked to look at neutral faces and rate their trustworthiness under a stress and a non-stress condition, while the eye gaze was recorded. The non-clinical sample was classified into low- and high-paranoia scorers using a median split. Eye-tracking parameters of interest were number of fixations, fixations within emotion-relevant facial areas, scanpath length and duration of fixations. Results In general, high-paranoia scorers had a significantly shorter scanpath compared to low-paranoia scorers ( F (1, 48) = 2.831, p = 0.05, η p 2 = 0.056) and there was a trend towards a further decrease of scanpath length under stress in high-paranoia scorers relative to low-paranoia scorers (interaction effect: F (1, 48) = 2.638, p = 0.056, η p 2 = 0.052). However, no effects were found for the other eye-tracking parameters. Moreover, trustworthiness ratings remained unaffected by group or condition. Limitations The participants of this study had only slight elevations of delusion-proneness, which might explain the absence of differences in trustworthiness ratings. Conclusions Restricted scanpaths appear to be partly present in individuals with subclinical levels of paranoia and appear to be susceptible to stress in this group. Nevertheless, further research in high-risk groups is necessary before drawing more definite conclusions.
Territorial passerines presumably benefit from their ability to use auditory cues to judge the distance to singing conspecifics, by increasing the efficiency of their territorial defence. Here, we ...report data on the approach of male territorial chaffinches, Fringilla coelebs, to a loudspeaker broadcasting conspecific song simulating a rival at various distances by different amounts of song degradation. Songs were degraded digitally in a computer-simulated forest emulating distances of 0, 20, 40, 80 and 120m. The approach distance of chaffinches towards the loudspeaker increased with increasing amounts of degradation indicating a perceptual representation of differences in distance of a sound source. We discuss the interindividual variation of male responses with respect to constraints resulting from random variation of ranging cues provided by the environmental song degradation, the perception accuracy and the decision rules.
