Langdon Robyn, Coltheart Max, Ward Philip B
Macquarie University, South Western Sydney Area Health Service, Australia.
Cogn Neuropsychiatry. 2006 Mar;11(2):133-55. doi: 10.1080/13546800444000218.
Schizophrenia and autism are clinically distinct yet both disorders are characterised by theory of mind (ToM) deficits. Autistic individuals fail to appreciate false beliefs, yet understand the causal connections between behavioural events and simple emotions. Findings of this type have promoted the view that ToM deficits in autism reflect a domain-specific difficulty with appreciating the representational nature of epistemic mental states (i.e., beliefs and intentions and not emotions). This study examines whether the same holds true for schizophrenia.
A picture-sequencing task assessed capacity to infer false beliefs in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. To assess emotion attribution, participants were shown cartoon strips of events likely to elicit strong emotional reactions in story characters. Characters' faces were blanked out. Participants were instructed to think about how the characters would be feeling in order to match up the cards depicting facial affect appropriately. Participants later named emotions depicted in facial affect cards.
Patients were as capable as controls of identifying cartoon facial expressions, yet had greater difficulties with: (a) attributing emotions based on circumstances; and (b) inferring false beliefs.
Schizophrenia patients, unlike autistic individuals, suffer a domain-general difficulty with empathetic perspective-taking that affects equally their appreciation of other people's beliefs, percepts, and emotions.
精神分裂症和自闭症在临床上有所不同，但这两种疾病都存在心理理论（ToM）缺陷。自闭症患者无法理解错误信念，但能理解行为事件与简单情绪之间的因果联系。这类研究结果促使人们认为，自闭症患者的心理理论缺陷反映出在理解认知心理状态（即信念和意图而非情绪）的表征性质方面存在特定领域的困难。本研究旨在探讨精神分裂症患者是否也是如此。
通过图片排序任务评估精神分裂症患者和健康对照者推断错误信念的能力。为评估情绪归因，向参与者展示可能引发故事角色强烈情绪反应的事件的连环漫画。角色的面部被遮挡。参与者被要求思考角色的感受，以便恰当地匹配描绘面部表情的卡片。随后，参与者说出面部表情卡片所描绘的情绪。
患者在识别卡通面部表情方面与对照者能力相当，但在以下方面存在更大困难：（a）根据情境归因情绪；（b）推断错误信念。
与自闭症患者不同，精神分裂症患者在共情观点采择方面存在一般性困难，这同样影响他们对他人信念、感知和情绪的理解。
