cognitive explanations

• • Dysfunctional thought processing refers to the ways in which a person with schizophrenia understands, perceives and interprets the world (and other people) around them
• • reduced processing in the ventral striatum is associated with negative symptoms, whereas the temporal and cingulate gyri is associated with positive symptoms such as hallucinations
• FRITH ET AL - indntified two types of dysfunctional thought processing

  • METAREPRESENTATION DYSFUNCTION - cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts and behaviour. allows insight into our own intentions and goals and to interpret actions of others. disruption results in reduced ability to recognise own actions and thoughts as being carried out by ourselves rather than others
  • CENTRAL CONTROL DYSFUNCTION - issues with cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses whilst we perform deliberate actions - thought to cause speech poverty and thought disorder
• A03

  + sterling et al compared performance on a range of cognitive tasks in 30 people with schizophrenia and a control group of over 30 neurotypical people. as predicted by frith et al, people with schizophrenia took longer. highlights how cognitive abilities are impaired
• A03

  -only explains the proximal origins of schizophrenia, which explains why symptoms are occurring now, and disregards any distal explanations which highlight what initially caused the condition such as genetics. therefore cognitive theories only provide a partial explanation for schizophrenia