Background and objectives

Cognitive models of psychosis implicate interpretation biases as one of the mechanisms involved in the formation and maintenance of symptoms. First we measured the strength of association between interpretation biases and psychosis-relevant traits. Next we manipulated these biases and quantified the effects of doing so on psychosis-relevant outcomes.

Methods

Experiment 1 used two measures of interpretation bias in a healthy sample (n = 70). Experiment 2 used a novel cognitive bias modification procedure (CMB-pa) in individuals with moderate trait paranoia (n = 60).

Results

Experiment 1 revealed that over a third of the variance in interpretation bias could be explained by the combined effect of trait measures of paranoia/psychosis. In Experiment 2, CBM-pa produced training-congruent changes in the interpretation of new ambiguous information and influenced the interpretation, attribution and distress associated with a real-life social event.

Limitations

The potentially confounding effects of elevated anxiety and depression on interpretation bias and the restricted range of outcome measures to assess the wider effects of CBM-pa.

Conclusions

These studies are consistent with interpretation biases contributing to the maintenance of paranoia. CBM-pa could next be adapted and evaluated to test its efficacy as a therapeutic intervention.

中文翻译：

---

偏执狂的偏见解释及其修正。

背景和目标

精神病的认知模型暗示解释偏差是参与症状形成和维持的机制之一。首先，我们测量了解释偏差和精神病相关特征之间的关联强度。接下来，我们操纵了这些偏见并量化了这样做对精神病相关结果的影响。

方法

实验 1 在健康样本 ( n  = 70) 中使用了两种解释偏差测量方法。实验 2 在具有中度特质偏执狂（ n  = 60）的个体中使用了一种新的认知偏差修正程序（CMB-pa ）。

结果

实验 1 表明，超过三分之一的解释偏差方差可以通过偏执狂/精神病的特征测量的综合效应来解释。在实验 2 中，CBM-pa 对新的模糊信息的解释产生了与训练一致的变化，并影响了与现实生活中的社会事件相关的解释、归因和痛苦。

限制

焦虑和抑郁升高对解释偏差的潜在混淆影响以及评估 CBM-pa 更广泛影响的结果测量范围受限。

结论

这些研究与导致偏执狂维持的解释偏差一致。接下来可以调整和评估 CBM-pa，以测试其作为治疗干预的功效。