Examining the External Misattribution Bias in Schizophrenia
Rodman, Alexandra Mayorca
2010
- Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness affecting 1% of the adult population. A cardinal feature of schizophrenia is misattributing internal thoughts, emotions, and actions to an external source. In the current study, we examined the underlying cognitive bases of this bias during mental simulation of real-world actions. Previously, it has been found that healthy adults take on an observer's ... read more(external) perspective when reading simple, action statements preceded by "He" and a performer's perspective (internal) perspective when reading statements preceded by "You" (Brunye et al., 2009). We predicted that patients with schizophrenia would be prone to adopt an observer's perspective, regardless of the pronoun preceding the action statement. Methods: Patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder were recruited from the Psychosis and Bipolar Disorder Unit at McLean Hospital. Healthy controls were recruited from Craiglist.org. Participants read simple, real-world action statements preceded by the pronoun "You" or "He." Following each statement, participants were instructed to verify whether a picture, depicted in either a performer's or observer's perspective, matched the action described in the sentence. Results: Unlike healthy controls and patients with bipolar disorder, patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder were faster at verifying pictures from an observer's perspective relative to pictures from a performer's perspective, regardless of the preceding pronoun. Conclusions: We extend previous findings of an external misattribution bias in patients with schizophrenia using a task that did not rely on patients' explicit judgments of their subjective experiences. Although it appears that this bias is related to diagnosis, more research is needed to determine the extent to which this bias is influenced by specific symptoms.read less
- ID:
- z316qc65t
- Component ID:
- tufts:UA005.006.144.00001
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- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
