Roux Paul, Brunet-Gouet Eric, Passerieux Christine, Ramus Franck
From the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Paris, France (Roux, Ramus); the Service Universitaire de Psychiatrie d'adultes, Centre Hospitalier de Versailles, Le Chesnay, France (Roux, Brunet-Gouet, Passerieux); the Laboratoire HandiRESP EA4047, Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, Versailles, France (Roux, Brunet-Gouet); and the Fondation FondaMental, Réseau des Centres Experts, Créteil, France (Roux, Brunet-Gouet, Passerieux).
J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2016 Mar;41(2):E13-21. doi: 10.1503/jpn.150045.
Schizophrenia is associated with poor theory of mind (ToM), particularly in the attribution of intentions to others. It is also associated with abnormal gaze behaviours and contextual processing. This study investigated to what extent impaired ToM in patients with schizophrenia is related to abnormal processing of social context.
We evaluated ToM using a nonverbal intention attribution task based on comic strips depicting social/nonsocial and contextual/noncontextual events while eye movements were recorded. Eye-tracking was used to assess processing time dedicated to visual cues contained in regions of interest identified in a pilot study. We measured cognitive contextual control on a separate task.
We tested 29 patients with schizophrenia and 29 controls. Compared with controls, patients were slower in intention attribution but not in physical reasoning. They looked longer than controls at contextual cues displayed in the first 2 context pictures of the comic strips, and this difference was greater for intention attribution than for physical reasoning. We found no group difference in time spent looking at noncontextual cues. Patients' impairment in contextual control did not explain their increased reaction time and gaze duration on contextual cues during intention attribution.
Difficulty may not have been equivalent between intention attribution and physical reasoning conditions.
Overall, schizophrenia was characterized by a delay in intention attribution related to a slowdown of social context processing that was not explained by worse executive contextual control.
精神分裂症与心理理论（ToM）缺陷有关，尤其是在对他人意图的归因方面。它还与异常的注视行为和情境加工有关。本研究调查了精神分裂症患者的ToM受损在多大程度上与社会情境的异常加工有关。
我们使用基于描绘社会/非社会和情境/非情境事件的连环漫画的非语言意图归因任务来评估ToM，同时记录眼动。眼动追踪用于评估在一项初步研究中确定的感兴趣区域中包含的视觉线索的加工时间。我们在另一项任务中测量了认知情境控制。
我们测试了29名精神分裂症患者和29名对照者。与对照者相比，患者在意图归因方面较慢，但在物理推理方面并非如此。他们在连环漫画的前两张情境图片中显示的情境线索上的注视时间比对照者长，并且这种差异在意图归因方面比在物理推理方面更大。我们发现两组在注视非情境线索的时间上没有差异。患者在情境控制方面的损害并不能解释他们在意图归因过程中对情境线索的反应时间增加和注视持续时间延长。
意图归因和物理推理条件之间的难度可能并不等同。
总体而言，精神分裂症的特征是意图归因延迟，这与社会情境加工减慢有关，而执行情境控制较差并不能解释这一现象。
