2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
An interdisciplinary study of theory of mind, symptoms and interpersonal diserders in patients with schizophrenia
| Project/Area Number |
16500163
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Cognitive science
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
IMURA Osamu Osaka University, Graduate School of Human Science, Professor (20176506)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ISHIGAKI Takuma Tokyo University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Associate Professor (70323920)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2007
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| Keywords | patients with schizophrenia / theory of mind / PANASS / delusion / coenitive disorder / intersersonal difficulty |
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| Research Abstract |
It is very important to support patients with schizophrenia not only in reducing their symptoms but also improving their interpersonal difficulties. In this study, we proposed the concept of theory of mind to understand the interpersonal difficulties and the symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. It was hypothesized that patients with schizophrenia would fail the tasks of ‘theory of mind' and show the low scores in the scales of LASMI (Life Assessment Scale for Mentally Ill). And it was also predicted that they had positive symptoms such as delusion and hallucination, because they had difficulties to read and infer the minds of others. Fourteen patients with schizophrenia, eight psychiatric controls and seven normal controls participated in the study. PANSS (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) was used to evaluate the symptoms of patients with schizophrenia. Hinting task (Janssen et. al., 2003) and comic task (Brunet, et. al., 2003) were used as the measure of 'theory of mind'. Pat
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ients with schizophrenia showed lower scores on the tasks of 'theory of mind' compared to psychiatric controls and normal adults. The result of this study was consistent with former researches (Corcoran, et. al., 1995; Sarfati, et. al., 1997; Brunet, et. al., 2003). The error analysis of hinting task revealed that patients with schizophrenia tended to catch the literal meaning which was described in the task. It was suggested that patients with schizophrenia had difficulty to undersland others' intentions and beliefs depending on the context of the tasks. Therefore it might be able to say that patients with schizophrenia have a similar disorder of ‘theory of mind' which had been found in patients with autism. The patients with schizophrenia who showed the difficulty of abstract thinking in PANSS and failed the hinting task had interpersonal disorder in group activity which was evaluated by LASML. However they did not have positive symptoms. They showed high scares in several sub scales of negative symptoms.
The result of the study suggests that the inability to infer others' mind state which was found in patients with schizophrenia will cause their interpersonal difficulties. Further study is needed to make clear the relationship between the disorders of ‘theory mind' and symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Less
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