Non-biological Explanation for Schizophrenia (Cognitive) Flashcards
What is the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia?
Cognitive
What is schizophrenia characterised by?
Disturbance in language, attention, thought and perception
What do cognitive psychologists think causes schizophrenia?
Faulty information processing
What are the three cognitive processes which Frith believes that most of the symptoms of schizophrenia can be explained by (non-biological explanation)?
Inability to generate willed action
Inability to monitor willed action
Inability to monitor the beliefs and intentions of others
Where does schizophrenia result from according to Frith (non-biological explanation)?
Patient’s increased self-awareness whereby they have an inability to filter out unnecessary cognitive noise
What does Frith suggest that schizophrenics fail to do (non-biological explanation)?
Monitor their own thoughts correctly, misattributing them to the outside world
e.g. when a person hears voices, it is actually their own inner speech being misinterpretated
What does Helmsley suggest that the central deficit in schizophrenia is (non-biological explanation)?
Breakdown in the relationship between information that has already been stored in memory and new, incoming sensory information
Schemas are not activated
Causes sensory overload which causes behaviour e.g. selective attention impairment, to tune out information
Why is the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia (cognitive) useful?
Leads to therapies like CBT which focuses on changing misattributed thoughts
How does the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia (cognitive) link to biological differences?
Helmsley suggests that the hippocampus is at fault
Frith proposed a disconnection between frontal and posterior areas of the brain
How does the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia (cognitive) explain both positive and negative symptoms?
Focuses on misattribution of thoughts and other cognitive impairments, so high in face validity as it can be applied directly
How does Frith and Done support the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia (cogntive)?
Patients with delusions did a lot worse when following a target on a video game with a joystick when errors were not visible so schizophrenics have difficulty monitoring their own actions
Symptoms do come from faulty thought processing
How does McGuire support the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia (cognitive)?
During hallucinations the part of the brain in the temporal lobe responsible for identifying and monitoring ‘inner speech’ recorded reduced activity so individuals may have been experiencing an internal conversation but were more likely to perceive the voice as belonging to another
Symptoms do come from faulty thought processing
How does McGuigan support the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia (cognitive)?
Found schizophrenics showed activation of vocal centres before episodes of auditory hallucination were reported so they misinterpreted their own inner voice as someone else
Symptoms do come from faulty thought processing
Why can we not see if cognitive processes causes schizophrenia or schizophrenia causes cognitive processes (non-biological explanation for schizophrenia)?
Most of the research is correlational, so no cause and effect is established
Why is the non-biological explanation for schizophrenia (cognitive) difficult to test?
Cannot empirically measure the cognition behind schizophrenia
