ABSTRACT
Background: Euthymic Bipolar Disorder (BD) has been associated with
subtle impairment in face processing. However, it is not known whether
their difficulties extend to the processing of gaze. Methods: In the
present study, two tasks, both of which rely on the ability to make use
of the eye-region of a pictured face, were used: the Reading the Mind in
the Eyes test and the Eye-gaze cueing task. Results: Compared to healthy
controls, BD patients were impaired at judging mental state from images
of the face but showed normal susceptibility to direction of gaze as an
attentional cue. Conclusions: These findings suggest that BD patients
present selective gaze processing impairment, limited to the sensitivity
to intention and emotion. This impairment could account at least
partially for the higher levels of interpersonal problems generally
observed in BD.
Keywords: Bipolar disorders; eye-gaze; social attention;
theory of mind