Abstract
Social cognitive psychologists (Frith, 1992; Hardy-Baylé et al., 2003) sought to explain the social problems and clarify the clinical picture of schizophrenia by proposing a model that relates many of the symptoms to a problem of metarepresentation, i.e., theory of mind (ToM). Given the differences in clinical samples and results between studies, and considering the wide range of what is considered to constitute ToM, one must ask if there a core function, or is ToM multifaceted with dissociable facets? If, there are dissociable dimensions or facets, which are affected in patients with paranoid schizophrenia? To answer these questions, a group of 21 individuals diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and 29 non-clinical control subjects, were tested on a battery of five different measures of ToM. The results confirmed that there was little difference in specificity of three of the tests in distinguishing between the clinical and non-clinical group, but there were important differences in the shared variance between the tests. Further analyses hint at two dimensions although a single factor with the same variance and the same contributing weights in both groups could explain the results. The deficits related to the attribution of cognitive and affective states to others inferred from available verbal and non-verbal information. Further analyses revealed that incorrect attributions of mental states including the attribution of threatening intentions to others, non-interpretative responses and incomplete answers, depending on the test of ToM.
Highlights
THEORY OF MIND Theory of mind (ToM) is that cognitive function that allows an individual to attribute information, beliefs, intentions, or feelings to others, in order to explain and eventually predict their behavior
SCHIZOPHRENIA AND THEORY OF MIND Frith (1992) postulated that that deficits in meta representation are at the origin of all cognitive aspects of schizophrenic symptomatology (p. 122) which include mentalization or ToM
They make overly simplistic interpretations of state of mind of others, or ignore completely the other’s state of mind (Montag et al, 2011). These symptoms are related to flattened affect, social withdrawal and chronicity (Bodlakova et al, 1974). In contrast with these symptoms, Frith (2004) described another class of errors such as errors in the prediction of behavior based on wrong beliefs, or ascribing significance to what others perceive as incidental or random events Other descriptions include increased self-reference, an excessive interpretation, or over attribution of beliefs or knowledge or a mental state to another (Frith, 2004), overgeneralization of hypotheses, or a hyper-ToM (Frith, 1994; Abu-Akel and Bailey, 2000; Abu-Akel, 2003; Montag et al, 2012) or social inferential reasoning that goes beyond the bounds of the context (Montag et al, 2011)
Summary
THEORY OF MIND Theory of mind (ToM) is that cognitive function that allows an individual to attribute information, beliefs, intentions, or feelings to others, in order to explain and eventually predict their behavior This construct is both clinically and theoretically significant as it furnishes a basis for the explanation of autistic semiology (Baron-Cohen et al, 1985) as well as other clinical populations such as Asperger’s syndrome (Happé et al, 1996) and dementia (Gregory et al, 2002). Others have described a lack of ToM (Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2007) errors of literal interpretations of mental states or overly simplistic inferences (Frith, 2004; Montag et al, 2011, 2012) This characterization is supported by data showing that schizophrenic patients tend to describe the physical appearance of peoples’ photographs rather than their state of mind (Pilowsky and Bassett, 1980; Allen, 1984).
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