Special Seminar May 2026

Different Ways of Seeing: Understanding Altered Visual Perception in Schizophrenia

Abstract: Schizophrenia is characterized by altered perception, including subtle but persistent changes in visual processing that can be assessed using targeted laboratory tests. However, relatively little research has been done to investigate the neural correlates of altered visual perception in the illness, nor to understand how seemingly minor changes in visual processing might influence perception outside the lab. In this talk, I will describe two studies by our group that have used complementary approaches to address these questions. First, I will present findings from a study that combined data from a highly controlled laboratory measure of visual processing (backward masking) with MRI and EEG to investigate neural correlates of altered perception in schizophrenia. Results from this project show that individual differences in visual processing are linked to multiple aspects of brain structure and function in schizophrenia. Second, I will present data from an ongoing study that employs an fMRI movie-watching paradigm to study perception in schizophrenia under stimulus conditions intended to approximate the real world. Interim findings from this study suggest that responses to naturalistic stimuli are altered across various brain regions in schizophrenia, with especially notable effects in lateral occipitotemporal cortex. In particular, BOLD responses to the naturalistic stimuli tend to be more idiosyncratic in clinical participants than in controls, implying that on average individuals with schizophrenia might have more unique experiences of the perceptual world. In closing, I will describe possible future directions for this work and discuss the potential clinical relevance of understanding visual perception in schizophrenia using cognitive neuroscience methods.

Bio: Eric Reavis is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research seeks to understand changes in perception, cognition, and social information processing that occur in schizophrenia. Dr. Reavis completed predoctoral training at Harvard University and the National Institute of Mental Health (USA), followed by doctoral training in neuroimaging and vision science at Dartmouth College. He then moved to UCLA, initially to pursue a postdoc focused on psychosis research. Dr. Reavis later joined the UCLA faculty, and he is now an Assistant Professor-in-Residence within the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He also holds a secondary research appointment within the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

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