Exploratory eye movements to pictures in childhood-onset schizophrenia andattention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

We investigated exploratory eye movements to thematic pictures in schizophr enic, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and normal children. For each picture, children were asked three questions varying in amount of structure. We tested if schizophrenic children would stare or scan extensi vely and if their scan patterns were differentially affected by the questio n. Time spent viewing relevant and irrelevant regions, fixation duration (a n estimate of processing rate), and distance between fixations (an estimate of breadth of attention) were measured. ADHD children showed a trend towar d shorter fixations than normals on the question requiring the most detaile d analysis. Schizophrenic children looked at fewer relevant, but not more i rrelevant, regions than normals. They showed a tendency to stare more when asked to decide what was happening but not when asked to attend to specific regions. Thus, lower levels of visual attention (e.g., basic control of ey e movements) were intact in schizophrenic children. In contrast, they had d ifficulty with top-down control of selective attention in the service of se lf-guided behavior.