Link between Eye Movement and Schizophrenia

"A study of eye movements in schizophrenia patients provides new evidence of impaired reading fluency in individuals with the mental illness," according to Science Daily. "The findings, by researchers at McGill University in Montreal, could open avenues to earlier detection and intervention for people with the illness. While schizophrenia patients are known to have abnormalities in language and in eye movements, until recently reading ability was believed to be unaffected. That is because most previous studies examined reading in schizophrenia using single-word reading tests, the McGill researchers conclude. Such tests aren't sensitive to problems in reading fluency, which is affected by the context in which words appear and by eye movements that shift attention from one word to the next." Read more.

Studying Eye Movement to Discover Neurological Disorders

Scieince Daily reports that "researchers at USC have devised a method for detecting certain neurological disorders through the study of eye movements. In a study published August 30 in the Journal of Neurology, researchers claim that because Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Parkinson's Disease each involve ocular control and attention dysfunctions, they can be easily identified through an evaluation of how patients move their eyes while they watch television." Read more.

No Connection between Eye Movement and Lying, Say Researchers

"In a controlled study published in the journal PLoS One, British researchers monitored the eye movements of 32 right-handed people as they told lies and truths about recent events to an interviewer," notes the New York Times. "The scientists found that there was no pattern of eye movement that predicted lying. In a second experiment, 50 people were asked to look for signs of lying among interviewees. Although half were taught to look for eye movements, they fared no better at lie detection than an untrained control group." Read more.