Perception Processing in Schizophrenia Patients and Normal Population

The present study aimed to examine face and object perception processes in schizophrenic patients. Schizophrenia is associated with deficits in visual processing that represent a key feature in the disorder. Previous studies have shown that schizophrenics exhibit deficits in a variety of facial-processing tasks (e.g., face recognition, recognition of facial expressions), that may severely hinder the patients' interpersonal and social skills. Some investigators have attributed these deficits to impairments in configural processing in schizophrenia. That is, an impairment in the ability to process the spatial relations between the constituent parts of a configuration (e.g., the spacing between the eyes of a given face). To date, studies aimed to investigate this possibility (e.g., Schwartz et al., 2002; Yong-Wook et al., 2008) yielded conflicting results. Additionally, it is not yet clear whether the hypothesized impairment in configural processing is restricted to faces, or whether it is more general in nature and applies to objects as well.