Dissociation of understanding from applying others’ false beliefs in remitted schizophrenia: evidence from a computerized referential communication task

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

David L Roberts¹  Bai-hua Xu²  Yong-guang Wang³ 

[1] Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, USA;Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, 148 Tianmushan Road, 310028, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China;Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, 148 Tianmushan Road, 310028, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China;Department of Mental Health, Hangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China;

关键词: Theory of mind;    Schizophrenia;    False belief;    Referential communication task;    Perspective taking;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-244X-13-141

 received in 2013-01-26, accepted in 2013-05-15,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn research on theory of mind (ToM), false belief paradigms are commonly used. Previous studies have reported that there is heterogeneity in the magnitude of impairment on false belief tasks. Moreover, intact ability to attribute others’ false beliefs has been widely reported in patients with remitted schizophrenia. Increasingly, evidence suggests that there may be different cognitive mechanisms underlying the understanding others’ false beliefs versus applying one’s knowledge of others’ false beliefs. Since the role of psychotic symptoms in ToM impairments is an important issue in the study of ToM deficits in schizophrenia, we examined both remitted schizophrenia and non-remitted schizophrenia, with the aim to investigate whether psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia are associated with deficits in understanding others’ mental states or difficulties in applying this understanding.MethodsThe present study investigated 29 patients with non-remitted schizophrenia, 19 patients with remitted schizophrenia, and 22 healthy controls with a revised computerized referential communication task. The ability to understand others’ false beliefs and the ability to apply others’ false beliefs were measured separately.ResultsPatients with non-remitted schizophrenia performed significantly worse than patients with remitted schizophrenia and healthy controls on a task of understanding others’ false beliefs, whereas no significant difference was found between the patients with remitted schizophrenia and healthy controls. Both the patients with non-remitted schizophrenia and patients with remitted schizophrenia performed significantly worse than healthy controls on a task of applying others’ false beliefs.ConclusionsOur findings suggested a dissociation of understanding others’ false beliefs from applying others’ false beliefs in remitted schizophrenia. We preliminarily conclude that deficits in the ToM ability of applying knowledge of others’ mental states might be state-dependent.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Wang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.