title: Apparent motion perception in patients with paranoid schizophrenia.
abstract: Impaired perceptual inference has been suggested to be at the core of positive symptoms in schizophrenia. Apparent motion (AM) is a visual illusion in which perceptual inference gives rise to the experience of a single object moving back and forth when two spatially separated objects are flashed in alternation. Here, we investigated the strength of AM perception in patients with paranoid schizophrenia. Patients were less susceptible to the illusion as indicated by a lower probability of motion perception at the individual's optimal presentation frequency for AM. In addition, the probability of AM perception was inversely related to delusional conviction in the patient group. These results suggest that schizophrenia may be associated with a reduced susceptibility to visual phenomena that commonly rely on perceptual inference.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany. lia.sanders@hu-berlin.de
authors.forename: Lia Lira Olivier
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Sanders
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: de Millas
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heinz
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kathmann
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sterzer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012563:Schizophrenia, Paranoid / Q000150:complications*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult