Visual Level 1 perspective taking in schizophrenia

Abstract

Being able to judge what is visually apparent to other people provides valuable information in social situations. As social cognitive impairments have repeatedly been connected to schizophrenia, this review sought to get a better understanding of the abilities of people with schizophrenia to judge non-egocentric Level 1 perspectives. Level 1 perspective is one of two levels of perspective taking. A systematic search for published scientific articles was conducted, and five articles met the listed criteria for inclusion. The studies examined different aspects of visual perspective taking which is reflected in the diverse findings of the studies. The results showed a slight tendency towards patients performing worse compared to healthy controls when having to judge a perspective that was not their own. With results from only a small number of studies focusing on this area, it is at this point difficult to suggest something unambiguous and reliable about visual perspective taking abilities in schizophrenia. Future studies should continue to examine how visual perspective taking abilities manifest in schizophrenia, as these abilities may be essential to the formation of higher-order social cognitive processes.