Original article

Korean Journal of Schizophrenia Research 2006;9(1):5-10.

정신분열병 환자의 눈맞춤 양상 평가에 있어 가상현실 기법의 유용성

Soo Hyun Kim, MD1, Jae-Jin Kim, MD1,2, Sung-Hyouk Park, MD3, Hee Jeong Jang, MA2, So Young Kim, MA2, Chan-Hyung Kim, MD1,2, Jeonghun Ku, PhD4, Hyeongrae Lee, MS4, In Young Kim, MD4 and Sun I. Kim, PhD

Abstract

Objectives:Appropriate eye contact is important in daily communications, but patients with schizophrenia tend to have inappropriate eye contact in communications. Despite significance of eye contact, there are few studies in schizophrenia. One of the reasons was a difficulty in the objective measurement of eye contact. In this study we addressed the quality and the quantity of eye contact using the virtual reality technique.
Methods:Subjects were 28 patients with schizophrenia (male 14, female 14) and 28 healthy controls (male 14, female 14). They wore head mounted display device and introduced themselves to 6 avatars in virtual reality. During hearing the avatar’s introduction, the degrees of angle of the movement of subject’s head were automatically taken. We analyzed the relationships of the degree of angle with the clinical variables of subjects (gender, social anxiety, positive symptoms, negative symptoms) and the avatars’ factors (gender, attitude during introduction).
Results:Compared to the controls, the patients with schizophrenia had significantly less eye contact. The controls showed a finding that the more social anxiety, the less eye contact. The patients with schizophrenia showed findings that the less social anxiety and the less negative symptoms, the less eye contact. In both groups, there was no difference at the aspect of gender of subjects/avatars, and the attitude of avatars.
Conclusion:We confirmed that virtual reality technique was an effective method to measure the behaviors related to schizophrenic symptoms. As the progression of the development of virtual reality technique, we expect more accurate diagnosis about schizophrenic symptoms and more effective interventions for psychosocial rehabilitations. (Korean J Schizophr Res 2006;9:5-10)

Key Words: Schizophrenia,Eye contact,Virtual reality,Social anxiety