individual - cognitive

Cards (20)

  • what is the cognitive approach? and how does it link with scz?
    - behvaiour is a product of internal mental processes, brain is a computer and mental illness is caused by problems with these processes

    - schizophrenia, is dysfunctional thought processing, central control system, metarepresentation
  • what are 3 cognitive thought processes?
    1. dysfunctional thought processes

    2. metarepresentation

    3. central control dysfunction
  • what is dysfunctioning thought processing and scz?
    scz is characterised by dirstruption to normal though processing
  • what did Simon et al suggest?

    reduced thought processing in the ventral striatum is associated with negative symptoms, whilst reduced processing of information in the temporal and cingulate gyri is associated with halluciantions.

    - this lower than usual level of info processing suggests that cognition is likely to be impaired
  • What did Frith identify?

    two kinds of dysfunctional thought processes

    1. metarepresentation
    2. centeral control dysfunction
  • What is metarepresentation?
    Cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour, allowing insight into our own intentions and goals - and interpretation of actions of others
  • what is dysfunction of matarepresentation? Give an example
    affecting our ability to recognise our own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than someone else. this explains hallucinations, hearing voices.

    e.g. a schizophrenic may belive they can control what a person is saying (miasttributing an internal force for an external action) or their thoughts are being inserted by aliens (misttributing an external force for an internal action)
  • What issues did Frith identify with the cognitive ability to supress automatic responses?
    speech poverty and thought disorder could result from inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by other thoughts e.g. people with scz tend to experience derailment of thoughts because each word triggers associations.
  • how do preconscious thoughts occur?
    without awareness, the info that the brian interprets as the most pertinent enters the conscious mind e.g. someone speaking, but not clock ticking, the rest is filtered out
  • what is Frith's attention deficit theory of scz?
    - scz is the result of the breakdown of thought filtering process

    - issues with attention, not able to effectively filter non-pertinent info

    - inability to properly focus causes disorganised thoughts

    - can account for hallucinations/delusions/disorganised speech
  • How are these cognitive deficits caused?
    abnormalities in areas of the brain that use dopamine, Friths research shows scz have reduced blood flow in these areas
  • Negative symptoms - How did Beck apply his cognitive triad to scz?

    - was developed to explain depression, unclear of how it can be applied to scz

    - does not explain how negative thoughts come from places, that began in the cognitive triad

    - cannot explain the pos symptoms of scz
  • evaluation - stroop test
    strength

    - evidence for cognitive explanations for dysfunctional thought processing
  • evaluation - stroop test, what did Stiriling et al do and find?

    do

    - compared performance on a range of cognitive tasks in 30 people with scz and a control group of 30 people without scz.

    - they had tasks like the stroop test

    find

    - Frith's prediction was correct as centeral control theory, people with scz took longer to name font colours

    - cognitive processes of people with scz are impaired
  • evaluation - Frith
    - frith offered casual explanation for deficits associated with scz

    - he proposed that the faulty operation of cog mechanisms is due to disconnection of the functions within the frontal cortex and posterior areas of the brain
  • evaluation - explaining hallucinations
    negative

    - has no explanation for origins for the deficits (distal causes) only describing the cognitive deficits
  • evaluation - negative symptoms
    negative

    - can not explain pos symptoms

    - where do initial negative thoughts come from?

    - cognitive triad was developed for depression, how well does it apply to scz?
  • evaluation - an intergrated model
    - the increase in dopamine secretion causes problems with cognitive processing, especially with delusions/hallucinations

    - the person with scz gets caught in a cycle of stress induced by experiencing these symptoms prompts the release of dopamine

    - suggests cognitive explanation alone is insufficient
  • What did Kuipers find about a combined approach to therapy?

    found that 50% of patients given CBT alongside standard care benefitted in a reduction in symptoms while only 31% in a control group
  • Overall evaluation of the cognitive approach and scz
    - can affect the brain

    - many lack generaliasability to non medicated schizophrenics

    - could mask cognitive deficits

    - conducting research on non-medictated scz people may be impractical and unethical