Role of Anticipation in Schizophrenia-Related Pursuit Initiation Deficits

Schizophrenia patients exhibit several smooth pursuit abnormalities including poor pursuit initiation. Velocity discrimination is also impaired and is correlated with pursuit initiation performance—suggesting that pursuit deficits are related to impairments in processing velocity information. Studies suggest that pursuit initiation is influenced by prior target motion information and/or expectations and that this is likely caused by expectation-based changes in the perceptual inputs to the pursuit system. We examined whether poor pursuit initiation in schizophrenia results from inaccurate encoding of immediate velocity signals, or whether these deficits reflect a failure to use prior target motion information to “optimize” the response. Twenty-eight patients and 24 controls performed an adapted version of a “remembered pursuit task.” Trials consisted of a series of target motions, the first of which occurred unexpectedly, followed by four to seven identical targets each preceded by an auditory cue and a “...