Rates of Saccadic Eye Movement and Size Judgments of Normals and Schizophrenics

Abstract

Saccadic eye movements during fixation of a target image and size estimations were studied in nonschizophrenic and schizophrenic Ss. The results on rate of saccadic movement were quite different in those who overestimated the sizes of the standard disc. Nonschizophrenics who over-estimated had unusually low rates of saccadic movement; schizophrenic Ss who over-estimated had unusually high rates of saccadic movement, especially when they were older patients who had been hospitalized for 12 to 20 yr. No difference in rates of saccadic movement were found between nonschizophrenic and schizophrenic Ss who under-estimated the standard stimuli. The high rate of saccadic eye movements in over-estimating schizophrenics can be compared to the similar result in normals who have been given LSD-25.