Mazza M, De Risio A, Surian L, Roncone R, Casacchia M
Department of Psychiatry, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy.
Schizophr Res. 2001 Mar 1;47(2-3):299-308. doi: 10.1016/s0920-9964(00)00157-2.
"Theory of mind" (ToM) means the ability to represent others' intentions, knowledge and beliefs and interpret them. Children with autism typically fail tasks aimed at assessing their understanding of false beliefs. These features of autism are strikingly similar to some negative features of schizophrenia. Mental abilities were studied in 35 schizophrenics (DSM-IV) and 17 normal controls. Subjects heard four ToM stories and simultaneously were shown cartoons depicting the action occurring in the stories. All stories involved false beliefs or deception. As for the current symptomatology, schizophrenics were divided according to Liddle's three-dimensional model (reality distortion, psychomotor poverty, disorganisation). Our results show significant differences between schizophrenics and normal controls in all ToM stories, with schizophrenic people performing worse than controls. In first-order stories (a false belief about the state of the world) significant differences were found among symptom dimensions, with the psychomotor poverty group performing worse than disorganisation subjects and reality distortion ones. As for second-order stories (a false belief about the belief of another character), the psychomotor poverty group performed worse than the other groups only in one of the four ToM stories. More research in separating ToM deficits from attention disturbances is needed.
“心理理论”（ToM）是指表征他人意图、知识和信念并对其进行解读的能力。患有自闭症的儿童通常在旨在评估其对错误信念理解的任务中表现不佳。自闭症的这些特征与精神分裂症的一些负面特征惊人地相似。对35名精神分裂症患者（DSM-IV）和17名正常对照者的心理能力进行了研究。受试者听了四个心理理论故事，同时还观看了描绘故事中发生动作的卡通片。所有故事都涉及错误信念或欺骗。至于当前的症状学，根据利德尔的三维模型（现实扭曲、精神运动迟缓、紊乱）对精神分裂症患者进行了分类。我们的结果表明，在所有心理理论故事中，精神分裂症患者与正常对照者之间存在显著差异，精神分裂症患者的表现比对照组差。在一阶故事（关于世界状态的错误信念）中，症状维度之间存在显著差异，精神运动迟缓组的表现比紊乱组和现实扭曲组差。至于二阶故事（关于另一个角色信念的错误信念），精神运动迟缓组仅在四个心理理论故事中的一个中表现比其他组差。需要进行更多研究以将心理理论缺陷与注意力障碍区分开来。
