Fragile temporal prediction in patients with schizophrenia is related to minimal self disorders
B. Martin, N. Franck, M. Cermolacce, Agnès Falco, Anabel Benair, Estelle Etienne, S. Weibel, J. Coull, A. Giersch
Scientific Reports August 15, 2017 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-07987-y via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPeople with schizophrenia struggle to predict when events will happen based on elapsed time, and this difficulty relates to disturbances in the sense of self. In a study of 28 patients and 24 matched controls, participants viewed a visual cue that either predicted or did not predict when a target would appear (after 400 ms or 1000 ms). Both groups responded faster to targets after longer intervals due to the natural predictability of time passing (the hazard function). However, patients with high scores on the EASE scale for self-awareness and presence showed no benefit from this temporal predictability, while those with low scores did.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 52 |
| Population | Patients with schizophrenia and matched controls |
| Keywords | Medicine Psychology |
| Citations | 58 |
| Key finding | Patients with schizophrenia, especially those with high self-awareness and presence scores, show reduced benefit from temporal predictability based on elapsed time and are abnormally sensitive to unexpected missing targets. |
Abstract
Patients with schizophrenia have difficulty in making sensory predictions, in the time domain, which have been proposed to be related to self-disorders. However experimental evidence is lacking. We examined both voluntary and automatic forms of temporal prediction in 28 patients and 24 matched controls. A visual cue predicted (temporal cue) or not (neutral cue) the time (400 ms/1000 ms) at which a subsequent target was presented. In both patients and controls, RTs were faster for targets presented after long versus short intervals due to the temporal predictability inherent in the elapse of time (“hazard function”). This RT benefit was correlated with scores on the EASE scale, which measures disorders of the self: patients with a high ‘self-awareness and presence’ score did not show any significant benefit of the hazard function, whereas this ability was preserved in patients with a low score. Moreover, all patients were abnormally sensitive to the presence of “catch” trials (unexpected absence of a target) within a testing block, with RTs actually becoming slower at long versus short intervals. These results indicate fragility in patients’ ability to continuously extract temporally predictive information from the elapsing interval. This deficit might contribute to perturbations of the minimal self in patients.