The cascade from basic visual processing to social dysfunction: An extended path model in a transdiagnostic…

Abstract

Background Social dysfunction is widespread across psychiatric disorders, but treatments remain limited. Identifying underlying mechanisms could inform novel treatment approaches that meaningfully improve clinical outcomes. We previously showed that basic visual processing deficits cascade through gaze perception and emotion recognition to impair theory of mind. Here, we test an extended model assessing whether this cascade ultimately predicts real-world social dysfunction via theory of mind in an expanded sample.

Methods A combined sample of 202 psychiatric patients with varying levels of social dysfunction and healthy individuals completed basic visual processing tasks, a multi-level social cognition battery that included measures of gaze perception, emotion recognition, and theory of mind, and clinical assessments of social functioning. A five-level path model evaluated the sequential cascade from visual processing to gaze perception, emotion recognition, theory of mind, and social functioning.

Results The extended five-level path model demonstrated good fit to the data. Poorer basic visual processing sequentially predicted deficits across intermediate social cognitive domains, culminating in theory of mind, which directly predicted worse social functioning.

Conclusion These findings indicate that basic visual deficits cascade through social cognitive steps to impair everyday social functioning. As a candidate shared mechanism contributing to social dysfunction, basic visual processing represents a promising target for psychiatric interventions.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{mathis2026cascade,
  title = {{The cascade from basic visual processing to social dysfunction: An extended path model in a transdiagnostic sample of youth.}},
  author = {Kelly Mathis and Scott D. Blain and Laura Locarno and Carly A Lasagna and Colombi Costanza and Katharine N. Thakkar and Cynthia Z. Burton and Ivy Fei Tso},
  howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.31234/osf.io/8xczy_v1},
  url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8xczy_v1/},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - The cascade from basic visual processing to social dysfunction: An extended path model in a transdiagnostic sample of youth.
AU  - Kelly Mathis
AU  - Scott D. Blain
AU  - Laura Locarno
AU  - Carly A Lasagna
AU  - Colombi Costanza
AU  - Katharine N. Thakkar
AU  - Cynthia Z. Burton
AU  - Ivy Fei Tso
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/17
PB  - PsyArXiv
DO  - 10.31234/osf.io/8xczy_v1
UR  - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8xczy_v1/
AB  - Background Social dysfunction is widespread across psychiatric disorders, but treatments remain limited. Identifying underlying mechanisms could inform novel treatment approaches that meaningfully improve clinical outcomes. We previously showed that basic visual processing deficits cascade through gaze perception and emotion recognition to impair theory of mind. Here, we test an extended model assessing whether this cascade ultimately predicts real-world social dysfunction via theory of mind in an expanded sample.  Methods A combined sample of 202 psychiatric patients with varying levels of social dysfunction and healthy individuals completed basic visual processing tasks, a multi-level social cognition battery that included measures of gaze perception, emotion recognition, and theory of mind, and clinical assessments of social functioning. A five-level path model evaluated the sequential cascade from visual processing to gaze perception, emotion recognition, theory of mind, and social functioning.  Results The extended five-level path model demonstrated good fit to the data. Poorer basic visual processing sequentially predicted deficits across intermediate social cognitive domains, culminating in theory of mind, which directly predicted worse social functioning.  Conclusion These findings indicate that basic visual deficits cascade through social cognitive steps to impair everyday social functioning. As a candidate shared mechanism contributing to social dysfunction, basic visual processing represents a promising target for psychiatric interventions.
ER  -

Abstract

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