Psychological Explanations: Cognitive Explanations

Question 1

What Frith et al identify?

Answer 1

• two kinds of dysfunctional thought processing that could underlie some symptoms
• metarepresentation
• central control

Question 2

What is metarepresentation?

Answer 2

• the conginitve ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour
• this gives us insight into our intentions and goals and allows us to interpret others actions

Question 3

What happens when there is a disruption in metarepresentation?

Answer 3

• disrupts our ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves and not by someone else
• this explains hallucinations and delusions

Question 4

What is Central Control?

Answer 4

• the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions instead

Question 5

What happens if the Central Control fails?

Answer 5

• disorganised speech and thought disorder
• people with sz tend to have deleriament of thought because each word triggers associations and they cannot suppress automatic responses to these