Background: Effective integration of visual information is necessary to utilize abstract thinking, but patients with\nschizophrenia have slow eye movement and usually explore limited visual information. This study examines the\nrelationship between abstract thinking ability and the pattern of eye gaze in patients with schizophrenia using a\nnovel theme identification task.\nMethods: Twenty patients with schizophrenia and 22 healthy controls completed the theme identification task, in\nwhich subjects selected which word, out of a set of provided words, best described the theme of a picture. Eye\ngaze while performing the task was recorded by the eye tracker.\nResults: Patients exhibited a significantly lower correct rate for theme identification and lesser fixation and saccade\ncounts than controls. The correct rate was significantly correlated with the fixation count in patients, but not in controls.\nConclusions: Patients with schizophrenia showed impaired abstract thinking and decreased quality of gaze, which were\npositively associated with each other. Theme identification and eye gaze appear to be useful as tools for the objective\nmeasurement of abstract thinking in patients with schizophrenia.
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