title: Smooth pursuit eye tracking and visual fixation in psychosis-prone individuals.
abstract: Subjects identified by Perceptual Aberration-Magical Ideation (Per-Mag) scores (n=97), Social Anhedonia (SocAnh) scores (n=45), and Physical Anhedonia (PhysAnh) scores (n=31) as well as normal controls (n=94), underwent psychophysiological and clinical assessment. This is the first published investigation of pursuit system functioning in three groups of questionnaire-identified at-risk individuals. Pursuit during a simple non-monitor tracking task was measured using root-mean-square error (RMSE) scores and pursuit gain scores. Fixation performance was measured in terms of number of saccades away from the central fixation point. The at-risk subjects were more likely to display aberrant smooth pursuit tracking than controls, though there were no significant differences between the at-risk subjects endorsing items relevant to positive-symptom schizotypy and those endorsing items pertaining to negative-symptom schizotypy. The groups did not differ significantly in their visual fixation performance. Participants were also evaluated for the presence of Axis I symptomatology and psychotic-like experiences. Neither the experimental subjects nor the control subjects displayed a significant association between ocular motor performance and psychotic-like experiences. These findings are consistent with prior evidence that pursuit tracking is a trait characteristic, independent of clinical status.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA. dgooding@facstaff.wisc.edu
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Gooding
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: T R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Kwapil
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011698:Pursuit, Smooth; D012307:Risk Factors; D012438:Saccades; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014922:Wisconsin / Q000453:epidemiology