Frith C D, Corcoran R
Department of Psychology, University College London.
Psychol Med. 1996 May;26(3):521-30. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700035601.
Mentalizing ability was studied in 46 symptomatic schizophrenic patients and 44 non-symptomatic controls. Subjects heard six stories and simultaneously were shown simple cartoon pictures depicting the action sequencing occurring in the stories. All the stories involved false belief or deception, so that it was necessary to infer the mental states of the characters in order to understand their behaviour. After each story, subjects were asked one memory/reality question (concerning an event in the story) and one question that depended on the ability to infer the mental state of one of the characters. Patients with paranoid delusions were impaired on the questions concerning mental states. Patients with behavioural signs (i.e. negative features or incoherence) were also impaired on the mental state questions, but this difficulty was associated with memory impairments. Patients with symptoms of passivity (e.g. delusions of control) and patients in remission did not differ from normal controls. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that certain of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia reflect an impairment in the ability to infer the mental states of others.
对46名有症状的精神分裂症患者和44名无症状的对照组进行了心理理论能力研究。受试者听了六个故事，同时还观看了描绘故事中动作顺序的简单卡通图片。所有故事都涉及错误信念或欺骗，因此有必要推断角色的心理状态以理解他们的行为。每个故事后，受试者会被问到一个记忆/现实问题（关于故事中的一个事件）和一个依赖于推断其中一个角色心理状态能力的问题。有偏执妄想的患者在关于心理状态的问题上表现受损。有行为症状（即阴性特征或言语紊乱）的患者在心理状态问题上也表现受损，但这种困难与记忆障碍有关。有被动症状（如被控制感妄想）的患者和病情缓解的患者与正常对照组没有差异。这些结果与以下假设一致，即精神分裂症的某些阳性症状反映了推断他人心理状态能力的损害。
