Elsevier

Psychiatry Research

Volume 170, Issues 2–3, 30 December 2009, Pages 119-123
Psychiatry Research

Correspondences between theory of mind, jumping to conclusions, neuropsychological measures and the symptoms of schizophrenia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2008.10.018Get rights and content

Abstract

Tasks measuring reasoning biases and social cognition were originally applied to the study of schizophrenia in order to shed light on the cognitive underpinnings of positive symptoms. However, the empirical evidence for overlap between these tasks, and their association with positive symptoms, remains preliminary. In the current study we explore these associations using multivariate methodology, with primary interest in two commonly studied paradigms: jumping to conclusions (JTC) and theory of mind (ToM). We also included measures of memory, executive function and fluency performance, in order to relate the cognitive constructs to more traditional neuropsychological constructs. Forty-six schizophrenia inpatients were administered JTC, ToM, verbal fluency, executive functioning, and verbal memory tasks. A principal component analysis resulted in three components interpreted as Memory, Elaboration and Flexibility. ToM loaded with verbal fluency on the Elaboration component, whereas JTC loaded with executive functioning on the Flexibility component. The negative susbscale of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) correlated with the Elaboration component, but no other component-subscale correlations reached significance. Implications of these results are that impairments in elaboration may underlie the commonly observed correlation between ToM and negative symptoms, but argue against a common neurocognitive system for JTC, ToM and positive symptoms.

Introduction

Research in the field of cognitive neuropsychiatry in schizophrenia typically employs a univariate group-study approach, whereby measures from one experimental task are compared between patients and controls, and/or patient subgroups. In this fashion the cognitive neuropsychiatry literature has gradually evolved to a state where multivariate associations are implied by the pattern of univariate results. Frequently these interrelationships involve associations with the symptomatology of schizophrenia, such that several cognitive/neuropsychological tasks can be linked to the symptoms of schizophrenia in complementary patterns, potentially providing insight into the nature of the underlying neurocognitive systems if empirically supported.

For example, tasks measuring social cognition and reasoning biases have been applied to the study of schizophrenia in order to shed light on the cognitive underpinnings of positive symptoms (Blackwood et al., 2001, Garety and Freeman, 1999). With respect to social cognition, it was initially speculated that impairments in understanding the mental states of others would lead to a misinterpretation of social cues, possibly resulting in paranoia and other delusions (Corcoran et al., 1995, Frith and Corcoran, 1996). However, the empirical evidence for these associations is often not well founded. Some schizophrenia studies have shown associations between measures of social cognition and delusions (Corcoran et al., 2007, Pickup and Frith, 2001, Pousa et al., 2008), but others have shown associations with negative symptoms (Bell and Mishara, 2006, Brüne, 2005, Harrington et al., 2005, Mazza et al., 2001, Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2007) or disorganization (Sarfati et al., 1997, Sprong et al., 2007). With respect to reasoning biases, it was hypothesized that impairments in reasoning, such as early termination of information gathering, could also result in paranoia and other delusions (Garety et al., 1991, Huq et al., 1988); however, the empirical evidence for whether or not reasoning biases correlate with positive symptoms is mixed (Corcoran et al., 2007, Garety and Freeman, 1999, McKay et al., 2007, Menon et al., 2006, Moritz and Woodward, 2005, Young and Bentall, 1997).

Negative symptoms are typically found to be associated with standardized neuropsychological measures such as verbal fluency, memory and executive functioning (Liddle and Morris, 1991, Moritz et al., 2001b, Norman et al., 1997, Woodward et al., 2003, Woodward et al., 2004), and this has been largely confirmed in meta-analytic reviews (Aleman et al., 1999, Johnson-Selfridge and Zalewski, 2001). However, associations between positive symptoms and executive measures have also emerged in meta-analytic reviews (Johnson-Selfridge and Zalewski, 2001). Moreover, these associations are sometimes not replicated (Green and Walker, 1985, Liddle, 1987, Norman et al., 1997).

Thus, while reasoning biases and social cognition are theorized to associate with positive but not negative symptoms, and memory, executive and fluency performance are theorized to associate with negative but not positive symptoms, this pattern of association and dissociation is not particularly well supported by the empirical evidence from univariate studies. Advancement of these theoretical accounts would benefit from multivariate studies, whereby measures of reasoning biases, social cognition, verbal fluency, memory and executive functioning could be administered to a single sample, and factor analytic techniques used to explore how these measures share variance. Shared variance between these measures suggests that they may be underpinned by a common cognitive operation. Factor or component scores can then be computed and saved, and correlated with positive and negative symptoms.

In the current study we were primarily interested in two of the most commonly studied reasoning and social cognition paradigms: jumping to conclusions (JTC; Garety et al., 1991) and theory of mind (ToM; Frith and Corcoran, 1996). JTC paradigms typically involve the beads task, where the subject is presented with jars containing beads of two colours (e.g. red and white beads divided 60–40 in one jar and 40–60 in the other) and asked from which jar beads are being drawn when the jars have been hidden from view. Schizophrenia patients tend to request fewer beads before deciding on which one of the jars is the source of the beads. The JTC response pattern on probabilistic reasoning studies is thought to be caused by a “data gathering bias” (Garety and Freeman, 1999) whereby patients with delusions arrive at hasty conclusions using less information than healthy controls. This JTC response pattern has been widely replicated in patient groups (Garety et al., 1991, Huq et al., 1988, Menon et al., 2008, Menon et al., 2006, Moritz and Woodward, 2004, Woodward et al., 2008), and some studies have concluded that this response pattern might be associated with positive symptoms as a whole (Menon et al., 2008).

ToM is perhaps the most commonly investigated aspect of social cognition in schizophrenia, for which consideration of situational variables is required in order to determine the perspectives and intentions of other people. This has been of interest for the study of positive symptoms, because delusions can involve a misunderstanding of what is on the mind of others (e.g., paranoid delusions). The Hinting task (Corcoran et al., 1995) is a widely used ToM task, and measures the ability to infer the real intentions behind indirect speech (e.g., what did the child really mean when they said “Mom I'm hungry” when passing the candy aisle). The need to relate ToM measures to other aspects of cognition has been mentioned in reviews, as this has been identified as an important future direction for schizophrenia research (Harrington et al., 2005, p. 282). These relationships have been investigated in other fields of research; for example, in developmental psychology associations have been observed between ToM and inhibitory control (Carlson et al., 2002) and in autism associations have been observed between ToM and set shifting (Ozonoff et al., 1991).

Based on theory, and the original motivation for applying JTC and ToM cognitive challenge tasks to the study of schizophrenia, JTC and ToM may be expected to share variance with each other and with positive symptoms, whereas verbal fluency, memory and executive functions may be expected to share variance with each other and with negative symptoms. The objective of the current project was to use a multivariate approach to assess whether this pattern of associations and dissociations would emerge from an empirical multivariate analysis. This involved two steps: a data-driven factor analytic approach to investigate the pattern of inter-relationships among the cognitive and clinical neuropsychological measures, followed by correlating the resulting factors with the positive and negative aspects of schizophrenia.

Section snippets

Participants

Forty-six patients were recruited from the inpatient and outpatient services of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto. The study and the recruitment procedures were approved by the Research Ethics Board of CAMH and the University of Toronto, and all subjects provided written, informed consent prior to their participation. Thirty-five patients had a current diagnosis of schizophrenia, nine of schizoaffective disorder, and two of schizophreniform disorder. All clinical

Results

Using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 16.0 for Windows, the following measures were submitted to a principal component analysis with varimax rotation: Acquisition (M = 10.52, S.D. = 2.93), Free recall (M = 4.41, S.D. = 2.02) Recognition (M = 7.02, S.D. = 1.72), Verbal Fluency (M = 8.72, S.D. = 2.59), Category Fluency (M = 7.17, S.D. = 2.08), Rule Extraction (M = 48.35, S.D. = 9.39), ToM (M = 16.76, S.D. = 3.40), and JTC (M = 7.04, S.D. = 5.35). The eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule and scree plot converged

Discussion

Based on theory, and the original motivation for applying cognitive challenge tasks to the study of schizophrenia, JTC and ToM may be expected to share variance with each other and with positive symptoms, whereas verbal fluency, memory and executive functions may be expected to share variance with each other and with negative symptoms. The objective of the current project was to use a multivariate approach to assess whether this pattern of associations and dissociations would emerge from an

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Sandy Richards, RN, CMHPN(c), CCRC and Ivana Furimsky, RN, MN, CPMHN(c), CCRC for their recruitment efforts, and Pablo Rusjan, PhD for software development. TSW is supported by a Scholar award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. RM is supported by a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

References (59)

  • MoritzS. et al.

    An analysis of the specificity and the syndromal correlates of verbal memory impairments in schizophrenia

    Psychiatry Research

    (2001)
  • PousaE. et al.

    Theory of mind deficits in chronic schizophrenia: evidence for state dependence

    Psychiatry Research

    (2008)
  • SarfatiY. et al.

    Attribution of intentions to others in people with schizophrenia: a non-verbal exploration with comic strips

    Schizophrenia Research

    (1997)
  • Shamay-TsooryS.G. et al.

    Dissociation of cognitive from affective components of theory of mind in schizophrenia

    Psychiatry Research

    (2007)
  • TroyerA.K. et al.

    Clustering and switching on verbal fluency: the effects of focal frontal- and temporal-lobe lesions

    Neuropsychologia

    (1998)
  • WoodwardT.S. et al.

    Methodological considerations regarding the association of Stroop and verbal fluency performance with the symptoms of schizophrenia

    Schizophrenia Research

    (2003)
  • AlemanA. et al.

    Memory impairment in schizophrenia: a meta-analysis

    American Journal of Psychiatry

    (1999)
  • BlackwoodN.J. et al.

    Cognitive neuropsychiatric models of persecutory delusions

    American Journal of Psychiatry

    (2001)
  • BoraE. et al.

    Theory of mind and unawareness of illness in schizophrenia: is poor insight a mentalizing deficit?

    European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience

    (2007)
  • CarlsonS. et al.

    How specific is the relation between executive function and theory of mind? Contributions of inhibitory control and working memory

    Infant and Child Development

    (2002)
  • ChristensenB.

    Toronto Brief Inventory of Cognition (TBIC)

    (2002)
  • CorcoranR. et al.

    A transdiagnostic investigation of ‘theory of mind’ and ‘jumping to conclusions’ in patients with persecutory delusions

    Psychological Medicine

    (2007)
  • DaviesD.R. et al.

    Monothematic delusions: towards a two-factor account

    Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology

    (2001)
  • DudleyR.E. et al.

    The effect of self-referent material on the reasoning of people with delusions

    British Journal of Clinical Psychology

    (1997)
  • FrithC.D. et al.

    Exploring ‘theory of mind’ in people with schizophrenia

    Psychological Medicine

    (1996)
  • GaretyP.A. et al.

    Cognitive approaches to delusions: a critical review of the evidence

    British Journal of Clinical Psychology

    (1999)
  • GaretyP.A. et al.

    Reasoning in deluded schizophrenic and paranoid patients: biases in performance on a probabilistic inference task

    Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

    (1991)
  • GaretyP.A. et al.

    Reasoning, emotions, and delusional conviction in psychosis

    Journal of Abnormal Psychology

    (2005)
  • GoruschR.L.

    Factor Analysis (2nd ed.)

    (1983)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text