Gaze direction determination in schizophrenia.

It has been proposed that an impairment in gaze determination is responsible for the paranoid symptoms reported in schizophrenia. To address this, we examined the gaze discrimination system in schizophrenia. Thirty-two patients suffering from schizophrenia (20 patients with persecutory delusions and 12 patients without such delusions) were compared to 32 control subjects on two specific tasks. In the first task, the subjects had to determine whether 130 portraits were looking right or left. In the second task the subjects were asked to determine whether or not 130 portraits were looking at them.