Kowalski Joachim, Dąbkowska Małgorzata, Aleksandrowicz Adrianna, Jarkiewicz Michał, Larøi Frank, Gawęda Łukasz
Experimental Psychopathology Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Schizophr Bull. 2025 May 8;51(3):780-791. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbae115.
Various neurocognitive models explore perceptual distortions and hallucinations in schizophrenia and the general population. A variant of predictive coding account suggests that strong priors, like cognitive expectancy, may influence perception. This study examines if stronger cognitive expectancies result in more auditory false percepts in clinical and healthy control groups, investigates group differences, and explores the association between false percepts and hallucinations.
Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia with current auditory hallucinations (n = 51) and without hallucinations (n = 66) and healthy controls (n = 51) underwent the False Perception Task under various expectancy conditions. All groups were examined for the presence and severity of hallucinations or hallucinatory-like experiences.
We observed a main effect of condition across all groups, ie, the stronger the cognitive expectancy, the greater the ratio of auditory false percepts. However, there was no group effect for the ratio of auditory false percepts. Despite modest pairwise correlations in the hallucinating group, the ratio of auditory false percepts was not predicted by levels of hallucinations and hallucinatory-like experiences in a linear mixed model.
The current study demonstrates that strong priors in the form of cognitive expectancies affect perception and play a role in perceptual disturbances. There is also a tentative possibility that overreliance on strong priors may be associated with hallucinations in currently hallucinating subjects. Possible, avoidable confounding factors are discussed in detail.
各种神经认知模型探讨了精神分裂症患者及普通人群中的感知扭曲和幻觉。预测编码理论的一个变体表明，诸如认知预期等强烈先验可能会影响感知。本研究考察在临床组和健康对照组中，更强的认知预期是否会导致更多的听觉错误感知，调查组间差异，并探究错误感知与幻觉之间的关联。
患有当前听觉幻觉的精神分裂症患者（n = 51）、无幻觉的精神分裂症患者（n = 66）以及健康对照组（n = 51）在各种预期条件下接受了错误感知任务。所有组均接受幻觉或类幻觉体验的存在情况及严重程度检查。
我们在所有组中均观察到条件的主效应，即认知预期越强，听觉错误感知的比例越高。然而，听觉错误感知比例不存在组间效应。尽管幻觉组中存在适度的两两相关性，但在一个线性混合模型中，幻觉及类幻觉体验的水平并不能预测听觉错误感知的比例。
当前研究表明，以认知预期形式存在的强烈先验会影响感知，并在感知障碍中起作用。对于当前有幻觉的受试者，过度依赖强烈先验也有可能与幻觉相关。详细讨论了可能的、可避免的混杂因素。
