Limitations
There are a number of limitations of this study. While all bipolar
patients assessed in this study were characterized as euthymic at the
time of testing, persistence of residual sub-threshold symptoms of both
polarities may have affected performance. Moreover, all patients were
under psychotropic medications, which could have influenced their
performance at the time of testing. Finally, a larger sample including
groups of different BD subtypes is required. All our participants were
diagnosed with for bipolar I disorder. This has to be kept in mind
because results can be generalized only with regard to this proportion
that is not representative of the disorder as a whole. There is reason
to believe that different subtypes of BD, may differ in eye-gaze
processing because they have been found to differ along important
cognitive functions such as verbal memory, attention, and executive
functions [57, 58].