Cognitive theories

• Cognitive explanation for schizophrenia


  Explanations stemming from the cognitive approach describe how disruptions of internal mental processes may lead to schizophrenic symptoms.
• What cognitive issues do schizophrenic patients have?


  • Schizophrenia patients have wide ranging problems with attention, perception, executive functions and numerous cognitive biases.
  • These dysfunctional thought processes are fundamental to the schizophrenic explanation.
• Dysfunctional thought processing. 


  • Dysfunctional thought processing as suggested by Frith (1992) involves the mechanism of metarepresentation and central control contributing to the development of schizophrenia.
  • Dysfunctional thought processing is abnormally functioning thought processes which lead to unpleasant and undersiable actions.
• What is metarepresentation?


  The ability to reflect on one's own thoughts and behaviours - and additionally to know what one's intentions, goals and motivations are.
• What is the significance in the dysfunction of metarepresentation?


  • Dysfunctions in metarepresentations have been associated with auditory hallucinations, and specifically thought insertion due to the inability to differentiate their own thoughts and that of others.
  • This may lead to paranoid delusions due to the contents of inserting other's thoughts into the mind of their own.
• What is the central control theory?


  • The ability to carry out a deliberate action whilst suppressing an automatic response.
  • Central control means that the schizophrenic patients have lost the ability to balance the competing demands of different pathways in the brain.
• What is Hemsley's model ?


  • People with schizophrenia exhibit cognitive biases which lead to them storing and processing information differently (different schemas).
• Hemsley's model theory:


  • Jumping-to-conclusions bias means that the patient makes decisions more quickly based on less evidence than others.
  • This could explain why schizophrenic patients have bizarre delusions.
• Evaluation of the cognitive explanation:


  Supporting evidence.

  • John Stirling et al (2006) compared cognitive performance'd on different tests where 30 schizophrenic patients where compared to a control group of 30 non-schizophrenic patients.
  • They used the Stroop test which is where a colour is written in a different colour font than the one written.
  • As predicted by Frith et al's central control theory, people with schizophrenia took twice as long to name the font-colour.
• Evaluation of the cognitive explanation:


  Issues and Debates.

  • The cognitive explanation takes the determinism side of the determinism/free will debate.
  • It assumes that anyone with schizophrenia will think in a distorted way using attention biases to interpret the world.
  • It doesn't account for individual difference within the array of experiences of schizophrenic people.
• Evaluation of the cognitive approach:


  Proximal limitation.

  • Cognitive explanations do not address why a person develops schizophrenia.
  • It only explains what is happening right then and their to produce the symptoms that occur.
  • They only address proximal, rather than ultimate origins of the symptoms which could be biological or psychosocial.
• Evaluation of the cognitive explanations:


  Combination of cognitive neuroscience.

  • A strength of the cognitive explanation is that it combines biological understandings with psychological factors thus creating cognitive neuroscience.
  • Frith has developed such a neuropsychological explanation of schizophrenia by making links with symptoms of schizophrenia to the dopamine pathways leading to certain dysfunctional cognitive thinking.