The clinical relevance of attentional bias in substance use disorders.

Individuals with substance use disorders typically show an "attentional bias" for substance-related cues: Those cues are able to grab and hold the attention, in preference to other cues in the environment. We discuss the theoretical context for this work before reviewing the measurement of attentional bias, and its relationship to motivational state and relapse to substance use after a period of abstinence. Finally, we discuss the implications of this research for the treatment of substance use disorders.

Visuospatial encoding deficits and compensatory strategies in schizophrenia revealed by eye movement analysis during a working memory task.

Objective: To investigate scanpath abnormalities during the encoding of static stimuli in schizophrenia and their interaction with visuospatial working memory (VSWM) dysfunction.

Methods: Outpatients with schizophrenia and control subjects were asked to encode a static pattern for subsequent recognition after a short delay. We measured the number of correct and incorrect choices.