Free visual exploration of natural movies in schizophrenia

Background Eye tracking dysfunction (ETD) observed with standard pursuit stimuli represents a well-established biomarker for schizophrenia. How ETD may manifest during free visual exploration of real-life movies is unclear. Methods Eye movements were recorded (EyeLink®1000) while 26 schizophrenia patients and 25 healthy age-matched controls freely explored nine uncut movies and nine pictures of real-life situations for 20 s each. Subsequently, participants were shown still shots of these scenes to decide whether they had explored them as movies or pictures. Participants were additionally assessed on standard eye-tracking tasks. Results Patients made smaller saccades (movies ( p = 0.003), pictures ( p = 0.002)) and had a stronger central bias (movies and pictures ( p