Cognitive Explanations Flashcards
what are cognitive explanations?
these explanations focus on the role of mental processes (thinking, language, attention)
schiz thought to be caused by abnormal mental processes
what are the positive symptoms?
cognitive biases
informational processing biases
what are the negative symptoms?
lack of emotion
speech poverty
what are cognitive biases?
-error in way you think.
-systematic patterns of deviation from “normal” thinking where inferences drawn illogically-can lead to delusions
what’s an example of a cognitive bias?
an individual with delusions of persecution is routinely interpreting others behaviours towards them as threatening
“out to get them”
what are informational processing biases?
-process info differently
-where info is “changed” in diff ways to “normal” ppl. can explain hallucinations.
what’s an example of informational processing biases?
-we all have an internal voice.
-people who have schiz don’t understand this as they’re own internal voice and may attribute it to someone else.
what is lack of emotion?
-thought to be because schizophrenics are experiencing high levels of emotion internally (confusion, anger, fear etc.)
-in order to keep “under control” remove external emotions
what can lack of emotion lead to?
-in no emotion not rlly speaking. (speech impairment)
-avoliton- no motivation
what is speech poverty?
-individuals thought to show speech poverty because they’re trying to control all of the disorganised thoughts that they have and make sense of them.
-dont have capacity to verbalise info
what’s dysfunctional though processing?
-refers to information processing that’s not functioning normally and produces undesirable consequences (schiz)
Frith et al (1982)
two kinds of dysfunctional thought processing that could underlie some symptoms:
meta-representation, central control
what is meta-representation?
-part of metacognition
-allows us to know what our mental state is and what wishes and intentions of others are.
-schizophrenics have dysfunction in their meta-rep.
-means can’t distinguish between own actions and actions of others. (inner speech - hallucinations)
whats metacognition?
-cognitive monitoring of your own though processes.
-we can detect errors in our thinking such as cognitive distortions and realise our mind is trying to tell us something isn’t really true.
what is central control?
-cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions.
-disorganised speech and thought seen in ppl with schiz could result in inability to stop automatic thoughts + speech that are triggered by other ppl.
