Ndition compared to controls. Neither did we find evidence for apophenia in schizophrenia, as patients did not attribute more contingency between the two moving triangles in any condition compared to controls. This last result is the opposite of the one reported by Blakemore et al. who found a normal attribution of intentions but an increased attribution of contingency in a transnosographical group of 22 deluded patients23.Scientific RepoRts | 6:34728 | DOI: 10.1038/srepwww.nature.com/scientificreports/(a) Fixation durationControls Patients Triangle Time (proportion) 1.(b) Triangle timeDuration (ms)RandomGoal directedToM0.4 Random0.0.Goal directedToMFigure 3. Mean (a) fixation duration, and (b) triangle time for random, goal-directed and theory of mind animations. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean.These results suggest that whereas delusion per se might be related to an overattribution of contingency, schizophrenia seems better characterized by a decreased attribution of intentions. It is worth noting that group differences in explicit mentalizing were not explained by cognitive control, verbal and performance IQ. However, contextual processing was associated with the accuracy of verbal description (see Supplementary Information 5), consistently with other studies suggesting a partial overlap between executive dysfunction and impairment of social cognition in schizophrenia39,52. However, these results are inconsistent with hypotheses suggesting that social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia are entirely attributable to contextual processing deficits. The study did not show significant correlations between clinical symptoms and explicit measures of mentalizing. However, social cognition usually correlates moderately with disorganization and negative symptoms of schizophrenia (with r ranging between -0.2 to -0.32)53: thus our study was not suitably powered to investigate correlations between symptoms and explicit mentalizing.Implicit mentalizing. The eyetracking results revealed that individuals with and without schizophrenia showed a buy XAV-939 similar modulation of eye movements in response to the different conditions of the Frith-Happ?animations. First, both groups showed the same increase in fixation duration from R to ToM LDN193189 site animations, consistently with previous studies42,46?8. This suggests an equal increase in cognitive processing related to the integration of mental states in patients as in controls. An increase in fixation duration regardless of the type of animation was found in patients. This is consistent with early studies suggesting that schizophrenia has been consistently associated with an increase in average fixation durations for a broad range of visual stimuli in different tasks, as well as with fewer fixations and saccades, smaller saccades and shorter scanpath length than controls54. This increase has been related to difficulties in attentional disengagement, the speed of information processing and a restricted visual scanning strategy in schizophrenia. Gaze was spontaneously directed to the intentional triangles (GD and TOM conditions) for longer durations than to the random ones, thus replicating the modulation of triangle time by the type of animation found in others studies46?8. Triangle time, an indicator of how much eye movements are preferentially directed to the intentional triangles, was also similar in both groups, thus suggesting that the detection and early processing of goal-directed actions and com.Ndition compared to controls. Neither did we find evidence for apophenia in schizophrenia, as patients did not attribute more contingency between the two moving triangles in any condition compared to controls. This last result is the opposite of the one reported by Blakemore et al. who found a normal attribution of intentions but an increased attribution of contingency in a transnosographical group of 22 deluded patients23.Scientific RepoRts | 6:34728 | DOI: 10.1038/srepwww.nature.com/scientificreports/(a) Fixation durationControls Patients Triangle Time (proportion) 1.(b) Triangle timeDuration (ms)RandomGoal directedToM0.4 Random0.0.Goal directedToMFigure 3. Mean (a) fixation duration, and (b) triangle time for random, goal-directed and theory of mind animations. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean.These results suggest that whereas delusion per se might be related to an overattribution of contingency, schizophrenia seems better characterized by a decreased attribution of intentions. It is worth noting that group differences in explicit mentalizing were not explained by cognitive control, verbal and performance IQ. However, contextual processing was associated with the accuracy of verbal description (see Supplementary Information 5), consistently with other studies suggesting a partial overlap between executive dysfunction and impairment of social cognition in schizophrenia39,52. However, these results are inconsistent with hypotheses suggesting that social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia are entirely attributable to contextual processing deficits. The study did not show significant correlations between clinical symptoms and explicit measures of mentalizing. However, social cognition usually correlates moderately with disorganization and negative symptoms of schizophrenia (with r ranging between -0.2 to -0.32)53: thus our study was not suitably powered to investigate correlations between symptoms and explicit mentalizing.Implicit mentalizing. The eyetracking results revealed that individuals with and without schizophrenia showed a similar modulation of eye movements in response to the different conditions of the Frith-Happ?animations. First, both groups showed the same increase in fixation duration from R to ToM animations, consistently with previous studies42,46?8. This suggests an equal increase in cognitive processing related to the integration of mental states in patients as in controls. An increase in fixation duration regardless of the type of animation was found in patients. This is consistent with early studies suggesting that schizophrenia has been consistently associated with an increase in average fixation durations for a broad range of visual stimuli in different tasks, as well as with fewer fixations and saccades, smaller saccades and shorter scanpath length than controls54. This increase has been related to difficulties in attentional disengagement, the speed of information processing and a restricted visual scanning strategy in schizophrenia. Gaze was spontaneously directed to the intentional triangles (GD and TOM conditions) for longer durations than to the random ones, thus replicating the modulation of triangle time by the type of animation found in others studies46?8. Triangle time, an indicator of how much eye movements are preferentially directed to the intentional triangles, was also similar in both groups, thus suggesting that the detection and early processing of goal-directed actions and com.
