Department of Psychology.
Department of Computer Science.
J Abnorm Psychol. 2010 Feb;119(1):83-92. doi: 10.1037/a0017514.
A key problem in studying a hypothesized spectrum of severity of delusional ideation is determining that ideas are unfounded. The first objective was to use virtual reality to validate groups of individuals with low, moderate, and high levels of unfounded persecutory ideation. The second objective was to investigate, drawing upon a cognitive model of persecutory delusions, whether clinical and nonclinical paranoia are associated with similar causal factors. Three groups (low paranoia, high nonclinical paranoia, persecutory delusions) of 30 participants were recruited. Levels of paranoia were tested using virtual reality. The groups were compared on assessments of anxiety, worry, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anomalous perceptual experiences, reasoning, and history of traumatic events. Virtual reality was found to cause no side effects. Persecutory ideation in virtual reality significantly differed across the groups. For the clear majority of the theoretical factors there were dose-response relationships with levels of paranoia. This is consistent with the idea of a spectrum of paranoia in the general population. Persecutory ideation is clearly present outside of clinical groups and there is consistency across the paranoia spectrum in associations with important theoretical variables.
研究妄想观念严重程度假设谱的一个关键问题是确定观念是否没有根据。第一个目标是使用虚拟现实来验证低、中、高无根据被害观念个体群体。第二个目标是在迫害性妄想的认知模型的基础上，调查临床和非临床偏执是否与类似的因果因素有关。招募了三组（低偏执、高非临床偏执、迫害性妄想）各 30 名参与者。使用虚拟现实测试偏执程度。比较了焦虑、担忧、人际敏感、抑郁、异常知觉体验、推理和创伤事件史的评估。虚拟现实未发现副作用。在虚拟现实中，被害观念在组间存在显著差异。对于绝大多数理论因素，与偏执程度呈剂量反应关系。这与一般人群中偏执的连续谱概念一致。被害观念明显存在于临床群体之外，在偏执连续谱中与重要的理论变量的关联具有一致性。
