title: Is social attention impaired in schizophrenia? Gaze, but not pointing gestures, is associated with spatial attention deficits.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The nature of possible impairments in orienting attention to social signals in schizophrenia is controversial. The present research was aimed at addressing this issue further by comparing gaze and arrow cues. Unlike previous studies, we also included pointing gestures as social cues, with the goal of addressing whether any eventual impairment in the attentional response was specific to gaze signals or reflected a more general deficit in dealing with social stimuli.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and matched controls performed a spatial-cuing paradigm in which task-irrelevant centrally displayed gaze, pointing finger, and arrow cues oriented rightward or leftward, preceded a lateralized target requiring a simple detection response.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Healthy controls responded faster to spatially congruent targets than to spatially incongruent targets, irrespective of cue type. In contrast, schizophrenic patients responded faster to spatially congruent targets than to spatially incongruent targets only for arrow and pointing finger cues. No cuing effect emerged for gaze cues.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results support the notion that gaze cuing is impaired in schizophrenia, and suggest that this deficit may not extend to all social cues.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dalmaso
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Galfano
authors.forename: Luana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tarqui
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Forti
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Castelli
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012919:Social Behavior; D013028:Space Perception