Smartphone gaze-tracking for accessible psychiatric assessment

Abstract

Eye movements are promising biomarkers for psychiatric and neurological disorders, yet conventional recording methods rely on bulky, expensive, and laboratory-bound devices. Deep-learning-based gaze-tracking technology now provides a practical means to capture these biomarkers outside the lab, with consumer-grade smartphones offering a particularly scalable platform. To evaluate the feasibility of this approach for psychiatric assessment, we conducted two complementary studies: a clinical investigation of hospitalized patients with schizophrenia and a normative study of healthy college students. In Study 1, we collected gaze data from individuals with clinically diagnosed schizophrenia (N = 134) and matched healthy controls (N = 130) using both an iPhone and a research-grade EyeLink eye-tracker. In Study 2, we used smartphone gaze-tracking data from a university cohort (N = 631) to classify depressive symptoms. Results demonstrated that smartphone-derived gaze metrics can distinguish psychiatric conditions. For schizophrenia detection, the smartphone model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 87.00% and an accuracy of 83.33%, comparable to the EyeLink benchmark (AUC = 87.12%; accuracy = 86.67%). For classifying depressive symptoms, a free-viewing task on Android smartphones yielded an AUC of 75.54% and an accuracy of 75.79%. These findings highlight the potential of smartphone gaze-tracking as an accessible, privacy-preserving tool for real-world psychiatric assessment and treatment monitoring.