Psychological Explanations-cognitive explanations

Question 1

Dysfunctional thinking

Answer 1

Mental process-sZ= disruption to normal thought processing
Reduced thought processing in “ventral striatum” = negative symptoms
Reduced thought processing in “temporal and cingulate gyri” = hallucinations

Question 2

Metarepresentation dysfunction

Answer 2

Frith- metarepresentation= cognitive ability to reflect on own thoughts and behaviour-allows insight to our own goals and interpret others actions
Dysfunction disrupt ability to recognise own actions from other peoples -other people are projecting their thoughts into your mind

Question 3

Central control dysfunction

Answer 3

Frith-issues with the ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions
Speech poverty and disorder -inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts
Derailment of thought -each word triggers associations which they can’t suppress

Question 4

Strength-research support

Answer 4

Evidence for dysfunctional processing
Stirling-Compared performance on cognitive tasks with 30 people with SZ and 30 without
People with SZ took twice as long to name the font colour -impaired cognitive function

Question 5

Limitations-only explains proximal origins

Answer 5

Proximal explanations explain what is happening now to produce symptoms
Distal explanations focus on what initially caused the condition . Could be genetic and family dysfunction. Unclear how these lead problems with meta representation or central control
Cognitive theories only provided a partial explanation