title: Correlations between psychometric schizotypy, scan path length, fixations on the eyes and face recognition.
abstract: Psychometric schizotypy in the general population correlates negatively with face recognition accuracy, potentially due to deficits in inhibition, social withdrawal, or eye-movement abnormalities. We report an eye-tracking face recognition study in which participants were required to match one of two faces (target and distractor) to a cue face presented immediately before. All faces could be presented with or without paraphernalia (e.g., hats, glasses, facial hair). Results showed that paraphernalia distracted participants, and that the most distracting condition was when the cue and the distractor face had paraphernalia but the target face did not, while there was no correlation between distractibility and participants' scores on the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). Schizotypy was negatively correlated with proportion of time fixating on the eyes and positively correlated with not fixating on a feature. It was negatively correlated with scan path length and this variable correlated with face recognition accuracy. These results are interpreted as schizotypal traits being associated with a restricted scan path leading to face recognition deficits.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Bournemouth University , Poole , UK.
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Hills
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Anglia Ruskin University , Cambridge , UK.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Eaton
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Anglia Ruskin University , Cambridge , UK.
authors.forename: J Michael
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Pake
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015835:Ocular Motility Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011594:Psychometrics; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000150:complications*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Eye tracking; Face recognition; Paraphernalia; Schizotypal personality; Schizotypy