Decision making on ambiguous stimuli such as prosody by subjects suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, alcohol dependence, and without psychiatric diagnosis.

The aim of this study is the empirical verification of the Bayesian approach applied to the description of the decision-making process with regard to prosodic stimuli in different psychopathological states. Using the Bayesian formalism, the interpretation of a disturbance in internal representation of the contextual information in schizophrenia was given. The results obtained satisfied the formula derived from Bayes' theorem in all tested except a schizophrenic group. Results were interpreted as reflecting cognitive flexibility, and discussed in the context of social adaptation. Although the investigation was based on psychopathological grounds, the results may be applied to the functioning of working memory in general.