Impaired theory of mind in schizophrenia
Ahmad Abu-Akel | University of California, Los Angeles
The study argues that linguistic/communication dysfunctions present in disorganized schizophrenia may stem, at least in part, from an impaired theory of mind. Using pragmatics and systemic linguistic theory, the study examined speech samples of two disorganized schizophrenic patients and attempted to determine if their communicative failures are because they lack theory of mind in the sense that they do not take into account the interlocutor's mind, i.e., the interlocutor's intentions, dispositions, and knowledge; or because they have a hyper-theory of mind through which they over-attribute mental states to their interlocutor, i.e., assume that their interlocutor has access to their intentions, dispositions, and knowledge. The study indicates that disorganized schizophrenics are unlikely to be characterized as lacking a theory of mind; rather they seem to have a hyper-theory of mind, to which the psychopathological symptoms of hallucinations, delusions of reference and incoherent speech can be attributed.
Published online: 17 February 2000
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.7.2.02abu
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.7.2.02abu
Cited by
Cited by 73 other publications
Abdi, Zeinab & Tonmoy Sharma
2004. Social Cognition and Its Neural Correlates in Schizophrenia and Autism.
CNS Spectrums 9:5 ► pp. 335 ff. 
Backasch, Bianca, Benjamin Straube, Martin Pyka, Farahnaz Klöhn-Saghatolislam, Matthias J. Müller, Tilo T. J. Kircher & Dirk T. Leube
2013. Hyperintentionality during automatic perception of naturalistic cooperative behavior in patients with schizophrenia.
Social Neuroscience 8:5 ► pp. 489 ff.
Berry, Katherine, Sandra Bucci, Peter Kinderman, Richard Emsley & Rhiannon Corcoran
2015. An investigation of attributional style, theory of mind and executive functioning in acute paranoia and remission.
Psychiatry Research 226:1 ► pp. 84 ff.
Bosco, Francesca M., Laura Berardinelli & Alberto Parola
2019. The Ability of Patients With Schizophrenia to Comprehend and Produce Sincere, Deceitful, and Ironic Communicative Intentions: The Role of Theory of Mind and Executive Functions.
Frontiers in Psychology 10
Bosco, Francesca M. & Alberto Parola
2017.
In Research in Clinical Pragmatics [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 11],
► pp. 267 ff.
Bosco, Francesca M., Maurizio Tirassa & Ilaria Gabbatore
2018. Why Pragmatics and Theory of Mind Do Not (Completely) Overlap.
Frontiers in Psychology 9
Brüne, M. & G. Juckel
2010. Soziale Kognition bei Schizophrenien.
Der Nervenarzt 81:3 ► pp. 339 ff.
Brüne, M. & D. Schaub
2012. Mental state attribution in schizophrenia: What distinguishes patients with “poor” from patients with “fair” mentalising skills?.
European Psychiatry 27:5 ► pp. 358 ff.
Brüne, Martin
2008.
In Neuropsychologie der Schizophrenie,
► pp. 347 ff.
Brüne, Martin
2009.
In The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior [The Frontiers Collection, ],
► pp. 217 ff.
Brüne, Martin & Luise Bodenstein
2005. Proverb comprehension reconsidered—‘theory of mind’ and the pragmatic use of language in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia Research 75:2-3 ► pp. 233 ff.
Bucca, Antonino
2019.
In Indirect Reports and Pragmatics in the World Languages [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 19],
► pp. 439 ff.
Bucci, Sandra, Mike Startup, Paula Wynn, Amanda Baker & Terry J. Lewin
2008. Referential delusions of communication and interpretations of gestures.
Psychiatry Research 158:1 ► pp. 27 ff.
Bömmer, Isabel & Martin Brüne
2006. Social cognition in “pure” delusional disorder.
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 11:5 ► pp. 493 ff.
Chan, Kevin K.S. & Winnie W.S. Mak
2012. Shared decision making in the recovery of people with schizophrenia: The role of metacognitive capacities in insight and pragmatic language use.
Clinical Psychology Review 32:6 ► pp. 535 ff.
Clemmensen, L., J. van Os, M. Drukker, A. Munkholm, M. K. Rimvall, M. Væver, C. U. Rask, A. A. Bartels-Velthuis, A. M. Skovgaard & P. Jeppesen
2016. Psychotic experiences and hyper-theory-of-mind in preadolescence – a birth cohort study.
Psychological Medicine 46:1 ► pp. 87 ff.
Covington, Michael A., Congzhou He, Cati Brown, Lorina Naçi, Jonathan T. McClain, Bess Sirmon Fjordbak, James Semple & John Brown
2005. Schizophrenia and the structure of language: The linguist's view.
Schizophrenia Research 77:1 ► pp. 85 ff.
Craus, Yann
2015. La perte de contingence : un concept phénoménologique renseignant les modèles cognitifs du délire de type paranoïaque.
L'Évolution Psychiatrique 80:4 ► pp. 639 ff.
Crespi, Bernard & Christopher Badcock
2008. Psychosis and autism as diametrical disorders of the social brain.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31:3 ► pp. 241 ff.
Crespi, Bernard, Emma Leach, Natalie Dinsdale, Mikael Mokkonen & Peter Hurd
2016. Imagination in human social cognition, autism, and psychotic-affective conditions.
Cognition 150 ► pp. 181 ff.
Dimaggio, Giancarlo, Stijn Vanheule, Paul H. Lysaker, Antonino Carcione & Giuseppe Nicolò
2009. Impaired self-reflection in psychiatric disorders among adults: A proposal for the existence of a network of semi independent functions.
Consciousness and Cognition 18:3 ► pp. 653 ff.
Dinsdale, Natalie, Mikael Mokkonen & Bernard Crespi
2016. The ‘extreme female brain’: increased cognitive empathy as a dimension of psychopathology.
Evolution and Human Behavior 37:4 ► pp. 323 ff.
Dinsdale, Natalie L., Peter L. Hurd, Akio Wakabayashi, Mick Elliot, Bernard J. Crespi & Andrew Whitehouse
2013. How Are Autism and Schizotypy Related? Evidence from a Non-Clinical Population.
PLoS ONE 8:5 ► pp. e63316 ff.
Dorn, Laura M.-L., Nele Struck, Florian Bitsch, Irina Falkenberg, Tilo Kircher, Winfried Rief & Stephanie Mehl
2021. The Relationship Between Different Aspects of Theory of Mind and Symptom Clusters in Psychotic Disorders: Deconstructing Theory of Mind Into Cognitive, Affective, and Hyper Theory of Mind.
Frontiers in Psychiatry 12
Eddy, Clare M.
2018. Social cognition and self-other distinctions in neuropsychiatry: Insights from schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome.
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 82 ► pp. 69 ff.
Epley, Nicholas & Adam Waytz
2010.
In Handbook of Social Psychology,
Fekete, Zita, Edit Vass, Ramóna Balajth, Ünige Tana, Attila Csaba Nagy, Nóra Domján, Anikó Égerházi & Ildikó Szabó Kuritárné
2021. Regrouping scalets: Psychometric properties of the theory of mind picture stories task in a schizophrenic sample.
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation ► pp. 1 ff.
Fekete, Zita, Edit Vass, Ramóna Balajthy, Ünige Tana, Attila Csaba Nagy, Barnabás Oláh, Nóra Domján & Ildikó Szabó Kuritárné
2022.
Efficacy of metacognitive training on symptom severity, neurocognition and social cognition in patients with schizophrenia: A
single‐blind
randomized controlled trial
.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
Fekete, Zita, Edit Vass, Martina Farkas-Pócs, Ramóna Balajthy & Ildikó Szabó Kuritárné
2022. Verbal manifestations of metacognitive and social cognitive operations in patients with schizophrenia who received metacognitive training.
Current Psychology
FILTS, Olexandr, Oksana LYZAK & Yulia MEDYNS’KA
2016. SCHIZOPHRENIA AS A DISORDER OF THE OBVIOUS: A CLINICAL HYPOTHESIS.
Proceedings of the Shevchenko Scientific Society Medical sciences 48:1 ► pp. 97 ff.
Gallagher, Shaun & Somogy Varga
2015. Social cognition and psychopathology: a critical overview.
World Psychiatry 14:1 ► pp. 5 ff.
Grohmann, Till
2017.
In Imagination and Social Perspectives,
► pp. 99 ff.
Haas, Marc H., Steven A. Chance, David F. Cram, Tim J. Crow, Aslan Luc & Sarah Hage
2015. Evidence of Pragmatic Impairments in Speech and Proverb Interpretation in Schizophrenia.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 44:4 ► pp. 469 ff.
Koelkebeck, Katja, Anya Pedersen, Thomas Suslow, Kerstin Annika Kueppers, Volker Arolt & Patricia Ohrmann
2010. Theory of Mind in first-episode schizophrenia patients: Correlations with cognition and personality traits.
Schizophrenia Research 119:1-3 ► pp. 115 ff.
Kronbichler, Lisa, Renate Stelzig-Schöler, Brandy-Gale Pearce, Melanie Tschernegg, Sarah Said-Yürekli, Julia Sophia Crone, Lavinia-Carmen Uscatescu, Luise Antonia Reich, Stefanie Weber, Wolfgang Aichhorn, Josef Perner & Martin Kronbichler
2019. Reduced spontaneous perspective taking in schizophrenia.
Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 292 ► pp. 5 ff.
Kronbichler, Lisa, Melanie Tschernegg, Anna Isabel Martin, Matthias Schurz & Martin Kronbichler
2017. Abnormal Brain Activation During Theory of Mind Tasks in Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis.
Schizophrenia Bulletin 43:6 ► pp. 1240 ff.
López-Herrero, Paz, Elvira Mendoza Lara, Juana Muñoz López, Maria Dolores Fresneda López & Gloria Carballo García
2007. A Study of Theory of Mind in a Group of Schizophrenic Patients Using a Mental Verb Extension Task.
Psychopathology 40:6 ► pp. 405 ff.
Marjoram, Dominic, Clare Gardner, Jonathan Burns, Patrick Miller, Stephen Lawrie & Eve Johnstone
2005. Symptomatology and social inference: A theory of mind study of schizophrenia and psychotic affective disorder.
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 10:5 ► pp. 347 ff.
Mehl, Stephanie, Klaus Hesse, Anna-Christine Schmidt, Martin W. Landsberg, Daniel Soll, Andreas Bechdolf, Jutta Herrlich, Tilo Kircher, Stefan Klingberg, Bernhard W. Müller, Georg Wiedemann, Andreas Wittorf, Wolfgang Wölwer & Michael Wagner
2020. Theory of mind, emotion recognition, delusions and the quality of the therapeutic relationship in patients with psychosis – a secondary analysis of a randomized-controlled therapy trial.
BMC Psychiatry 20:1
Momeni, Fereshteh & Shahla Raghibdoust
2012. The relationship between incoherent speech and different types of delusions and hallucinations in schizophrenics with positive symptoms.
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 ► pp. 288 ff.
Montag, Christiane, Isabel Dziobek, Inga S. Richter, Kathrin Neuhaus, Anja Lehmann, Rudolf Sylla, Hauke R. Heekeren, Andreas Heinz & Jürgen Gallinat
2011. Different aspects of theory of mind in paranoid schizophrenia: Evidence from a video-based assessment.
Psychiatry Research 186:2-3 ► pp. 203 ff.
Morel-Kohlmeyer, Shasha, Alix Thillay, Sylvie Roux, Isabelle Amado, Lindsay Brenugat, Isabelle Carteau-Martin, Charlotte Danset-Alexandre, Baptiste Gaudelus, Jérôme Graux, Elodie Peyroux, Zelda Prost, Marie-Odile Krebs, Nicolas Franck, Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault & Emmanuelle Houy-Durand
2021. When Alterations in Social Cognition Meet Subjective Complaints in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evaluation With the “ClaCoS” Battery.
Frontiers in Psychiatry 12
Nelson, Barnaby & Andrea Raballo
2013. I disturbi nucleari del sè e gli stati mentali a rischio: uno sguardo fenomenologico al paradigma della ricerca Ultra-High Risk.
RIVISTA SPERIMENTALE DI FRENIATRIA :3 ► pp. 97 ff.
Nelson, Barnaby, Louis A. Sass, Andrew Thompson, Alison R. Yung, Shona M. Francey, G. Paul Amminger & Patrick D. McGorry
2009. Does disturbance of self underlie social cognition deficits in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders?.
Early Intervention in Psychiatry 3:2 ► pp. 83 ff.
Parola, Alberto, Claudio Brasso, Rosalba Morese, Paola Rocca & Francesca M. Bosco
2021. Understanding communicative intentions in schizophrenia using an error analysis approach.
npj Schizophrenia 7:1
Parola, Alberto, Ilaria Gabbatore, Laura Berardinelli, Rogerio Salvini & Francesca M. Bosco
2021. Multimodal assessment of communicative-pragmatic features in schizophrenia: a machine learning approach.
npj Schizophrenia 7:1
Parola, Alberto, Rogerio Salvini, Ilaria Gabbatore, Livia Colle, Laura Berardinelli, Francesca M. Bosco & Zezhi Li
2020. Pragmatics, Theory of Mind and executive functions in schizophrenia: Disentangling the puzzle using machine learning.
PLOS ONE 15:3 ► pp. e0229603 ff.
Peyroux, Elodie, Zelda Prost, Charlotte Danset-Alexandre, Lindsay Brenugat-Herne, Isabelle Carteau-Martin, Baptiste Gaudelus, Célia Jantac, David Attali, Isabelle Amado, Jérôme Graux, Emmanuelle Houy-Durand, Julien Plasse & Nicolas Franck
2019. From “under” to “over” social cognition in schizophrenia: Is there distinct profiles of impairments according to negative and positive symptoms?.
Schizophrenia Research: Cognition 15 ► pp. 21 ff.
Peyroux, Elodie, Brent Strickland, Isabelle Tapiero & Nicolas Franck
2014. The intentionality bias in schizophrenia.
Psychiatry Research 219:3 ► pp. 426 ff.
Peyroux, É.
2016.
In Outils de la Réhabilitation en Psychiatrie,
► pp. 69 ff.
Peyroux, Élodie, Baptiste Gaudelus & Nicolas Franck
2013. Remédiation cognitive des troubles de la cognition sociale dans la schizophrénie.
L'Évolution Psychiatrique 78:1 ► pp. 71 ff.
Pienkos, Elizabeth
2015. Intersubjectivity and its role in schizophrenic experience..
The Humanistic Psychologist 43:2 ► pp. 194 ff.
Pousa, Esther, Rosó Duñó, Gildas Brébion, Anthony S. David, Ada I. Ruiz & Jordi E. Obiols
2008. Theory of mind deficits in chronic schizophrenia: Evidence for state dependence.
Psychiatry Research 158:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Rambeau, Sébastien, Sarah Del Goleto, Baptiste Pignon, Mohamed Lajnef, Jean Petrucci, Andreï Szöke, Guillaume Fond, Christophe Lançon, Jean-Michel Dorey, Romain Rey, Amandine Garbisson, Delphine Capdevielle, Sylvain Leignier, Julien Dubreucq, Jasmina Mallet, Caroline Dubertret, Mathieu Urbach, Eric Brunet-Gouet, Bruno Aouizerate, David Misdrahi, Anna Zinetti-Bertschy, Julie Clauss, Pierre-Michel Llorca, Isabelle Chereau, Marion Leboyer, Paul Roux & Franck Schürhoff
2022. Relationship between neurocognition and theory of mind as a function of symptomatic profile in schizophrenia: results from the national FACE-SZ cohort.
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 27:1 ► pp. 49 ff.
Rodríguez Sosa, Juana Teresa, Miguel Acosta Ojeda & Luciano Rodríguez Del Rosario
2011. Teoría de la mente, reconocimiento facial y procesamiento emocional en la esquizofrenia.
Revista de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental 4:1 ► pp. 28 ff.
Rodríguez Sosa, Juana Teresa, Miguel Acosta Ojeda & Luciano Rodríguez del Rosario
2011. Theory of mind, facial recognition and emotional processing in schizophrenia.
Revista de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental (English Edition) 4:1 ► pp. 28 ff.
Rodríguez Sosa, Juana Teresa, Hiurma Gil Santiago, Angel Trujillo Cubas, Marta Winter Navarro, Petra León Pérez, Luz Marina Guerra Cazorla & José María Martín Jiménez
2013. Cognición social en pacientes con esquizofrenia, familiares de primer grado y controles sanos. Comparación entre grupos y análisis de variables clínicas y sociodemográficas relacionadas.
Revista de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental 6:4 ► pp. 160 ff.
Rodríguez Sosa, Juana Teresa, Hiurma Gil Santiago, Angel Trujillo Cubas, Marta Winter Navarro, Petra León Pérez, Luz Marina Guerra Cazorla & José María Martín Jiménez
2013. Social cognition in patients with schizophrenia, their unaffected first degree relatives and healthy controls. Comparison between groups and analysis of associated clinical and sociodemographic variables.
Revista de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental (English Edition) 6:4 ► pp. 160 ff.
Roy, M., M.-A. Roy & S. Grondin
2008. Les perturbations de la conscience dans la schizophrénie : évaluation du modèle de C.D. Frith.
L'Encéphale 34:4 ► pp. 369 ff.
Salvatore, Giampaolo, Paul H. Lysaker, Raffaele Popolo, Michele Procacci, Antonino Carcione & Giancarlo Dimaggio
2012. Vulnerable Self, Poor Understanding of Others' Minds, Threat Anticipation and Cognitive Biases as Triggers for Delusional Experience in Schizophrenia: A Theoretical Model.
Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 19:3 ► pp. 247 ff.
Salvatore, Giampaolo, Michele Procacci, Raffaele Popolo, Giuseppe Nicolò, Antonino Carcione, Antonio Semerari & Giancarlo Dimaggio
2009. Adapted Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy for Improving Adherence to Intersubjective Contexts in a Person With Schizophrenia.
Clinical Case Studies 8:6 ► pp. 473 ff.
Sass, Louis & Elizabeth Pienkos
2015. Faces of Intersubjectivity.
Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 46:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Schnell, Zsuzsanna, Róbert Herold, Tamás Tényi & Eszter Varga
2019.
In Fuzzy Boundaries in Discourse Studies,
► pp. 181 ff.
Schnell, Zsuzsanna, Eszter Varga, Tamás Tényi, Mária Simon, András Hajnal, Róbert Járai & Róbert Herold
2016. Neuropragmatics and irony processing in schizophrenia – Possible neural correlates of the meta-module of pragmatic meaning construction.
Journal of Pragmatics 92 ► pp. 74 ff.
Stamenov, Maxim I.
2003.
In The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry,
► pp. 76 ff.
Startup, Mike, Sandra Bucci & Robyn Langdon
2009. Delusions of reference: A new theoretical model.
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 14:2 ► pp. 110 ff.
Thirioux, Bérangère, Louis Tandonnet, Nematollah Jaafari & Alain Berthoz
2014. Disturbances of spontaneous empathic processing relate with the severity of the negative symptoms in patients with schizophrenia: A behavioural pilot-study using virtual reality technology.
Brain and Cognition 90 ► pp. 87 ff.
Tonelli, Hélio Anderson
2009. Processamento cognitivo "Teoria da Mente" no transtorno bipolar.
Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria 31:4 ► pp. 369 ff.
van der Weiden, Anouk, Merel Prikken & Neeltje E.M. van Haren
2015. Self–other integration and distinction in schizophrenia: A theoretical analysis and a review of the evidence.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 57 ► pp. 220 ff.
Varga, E., Zs. Schnell, T. Tényi, N. Németh, M. Simon, A. Hajnal, R.A. Horváth, E. Hamvas, R. Járai, S. Fekete & R. Herold
2014. Compensatory effect of general cognitive skills on non-literal language processing in schizophrenia: A preliminary study.
Journal of Neurolinguistics 29 ► pp. 1 ff.
Wastler, Heather M. & Mark F. Lenzenweger
2021. Cognitive and Affective Theory of Mind in Positive Schizotypy: Relationship to Schizotypal Traits and Psychosocial Functioning.
Journal of Personality Disorders 35:4 ► pp. 538 ff.
Yalınçetin, Berna, Halis Ulaş, Levent Var, Tolga Binbay, Berna Binnur Akdede & Köksal Alptekin
2016. Relation of formal thought disorder to symptomatic remission and social functioning in schizophrenia.
Comprehensive Psychiatry 70 ► pp. 98 ff.
Yan, Zhimin, Stephanie N. L. Schmidt, Josef Frank, Stephanie H. Witt, Joachim Hass, Peter Kirsch & Daniela Mier
2020. Hyperfunctioning of the right posterior superior temporal sulcus in response to neutral facial expressions presents an endophenotype of schizophrenia.
Neuropsychopharmacology 45:8 ► pp. 1346 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.