Visual search irregularities in schizophrenia depend on display size switching.

Introduction: In past research it has been demonstrated that when performing a visual search task with either one or multiple (4, 7 or 10) stimuli displayed, patients with schizophrenia demonstrate slow response times (RTs) in the display size of one, target-absent (one-absent) condition. The goals of the present investigation were to replicate this effect, and to gain an understanding of the underlying cognitive operations by comparing display-size switch to display-size repeat trials.

Methods: In two experiments, patients and controls performed a visual search task with either one or four stimuli displayed.