title: The intentionality bias in schizophrenia.
abstract: The tendency to over-interpret events of daily life as resulting from voluntary or intentional actions is one of the key aspects of schizophrenia with persecutory delusions. Here, we ask whether this characteristic may emerge from the abnormal activity of a basic cognitive process found in healthy adults and children: the intentionality bias, which refers to the implicit and automatic inclination to interpret human actions as intentional (Rosset, 2008, Cognition 108, 771-780). In our experiment, patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls were shown sentences describing human actions in various linguistic contexts, and were asked to indicate whether the action was intentional or not. The results indicated that people with schizophrenia exhibited a striking bias to over attribute intentionality regardless of linguistic context, contrary to healthy controls who did not exhibit such a general intentionality bias. Moreover, this study provides some insight into the cognitive mechanisms underlying this bias: an inability to inhibit the automatic attribution of intentionality.
authors.affiliation: Centre de Neurosciences Cognitives, UMR 5229, CNRS, 67 Boulevard Pinel, 69675 Bron Cedex, France; Service Universitaire de Réhabilitation, Centre de Réhabilitation, Centre Hospitalier Le Vinatier, 98 rue Boileau, 69006 Lyon, France; Laboratoire d׳Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs, EA 3082, 5 avenue Pierre Mendès France, 69500 Bron, France; Université Lumière Lyon 2, 5 avenue Pierre Mendès France, 69500 Bron, France. Electronic address: elodie.peyroux@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Elodie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Peyroux
authors.affiliation: Yale University, Department of Psychology, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Brent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Strickland
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d׳Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs, EA 3082, 5 avenue Pierre Mendès France, 69500 Bron, France; Université Lumière Lyon 2, 5 avenue Pierre Mendès France, 69500 Bron, France.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tapiero
authors.affiliation: Centre de Neurosciences Cognitives, UMR 5229, CNRS, 67 Boulevard Pinel, 69675 Bron Cedex, France; Service Universitaire de Réhabilitation, Centre de Réhabilitation, Centre Hospitalier Le Vinatier, 98 rue Boileau, 69006 Lyon, France; Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 43 Boulevard du 11 novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Franck
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015982:Bias; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition; D003702:Delusions / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D007600:Judgment; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Inhibitory processes; Intentionality bias; Schizophrenia; Theory of Mind