Citation

White HR. J. Exp. Psychol. 1938; 22(1): 17-31.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1938, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/h0059202

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this study records were secured from 20 normal S's, 17 schizophrenics, 8 manic-depressives, and 13 psychoneurotics. Each record consisted of a photographic recording of the eye movements elicited by 10 oscillations of a pursuit object at each of five velocities. The object of pursuit was the light of a flashlight bulb, which was made to pass through 9° of the visual field. "There was no pattern of ocular adjustment in the patients that was not found also in the non-patient group. Neither 'negativism' nor 'step-like' pursuit was found to have any diagnostic significance. In records of both the normal and psychopathic S's the amplitude of eye movement and pursuit movement was approximately identical, and decreased with increasing velocities of the pursued object. In both sets of records the duration of oscillation of the eye corresponds to the duration of oscillation of the pursued object. This relation was constant at all frequencies of oscillation. The difference between mentally diseased and normal subjects lay in the greater irregularity and earlier abandonment of pursuit in the former. The mentally diseased individuals showed, in greatly exaggerated form, certain characteristics of optic pursuit which were found in normal individuals." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)