Mechanisms of visual search impairment among patients with schizophrenia.
Published: 2007
Language: eng
Number of pages: 85
ISBN-13: 9780494274934
Description: The purpose of this study was to investigate two possible mechanisms for impaired visual search performance among patients with SCZ: a narrower visual span and impaired selectivity. Consistent with previous findings, the patients in this study were more adversely affected as the number of search items increased. Importantly, patients' visual search impairment was only evident when they searched for more eccentric targets, suggesting that patients with SCZ do indeed have a narrower visual span and that visual span reduction is associated with impaired visual search. In addition, patients dynamically modulated their search such that they directed their attention to the distractor type that had the smaller number of items. Overall, these data suggest that a narrower visual span is an important mechanism of impaired visual search performance among patients with SCZ. In contrast, evidence for impaired selectivity was not found in this study.
Notes: Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 3310.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Toronto, 2007.

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