Inflexible social inference in individuals with subclinical persecutory delusional tendencies

Wellstein, Katharina V.; Diaconescu, Andreea O.; Bischof, Martin; Rüesch, Annia; Paolini, Gina; Aponte, Eduardo A.; Ullrich, Johannes; Stephan, Klaas Enno

doi:10.31234/osf.io/k36q8

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Our findings converge with the idea that pre-existing paranoia (a higher-level belief about others) influences momentary inferences regardless of a partner’s behaviour [ 20 ]. Prior non-social evidence [ 27 ] and simulation studies [ 28 ] conclude that delusional beliefs can be in part explained by a deficit in holding stable beliefs about the world.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…This finding potentially suggested increased uncertainty of live paranoid social inferences in those with higher baseline pre-existing paranoid beliefs. However, other experimental results have been mixed with regard to social inferences—Wellstein et al [ 20 ] reported reduced flexibility in social sensitivity when making advice decisions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reduction in social learning and increased policy uncertainty about harmful intent is associated with pre-existing paranoid beliefs: Evidence from modelling a modified serial dictator game

et al. 2020

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Current computational models suggest that paranoia may be explained by stronger higher-order beliefs about others and increased sensitivity to environments. However, it is unclear whether this applies to social contexts, and whether it is specific to harmful intent attributions, the live expression of paranoia. We sought to fill this gap by fitting a computational model to data (n = 1754) from a modified serial dictator game, to explore whether pre-existing paranoia could be accounted by specific alterations to cognitive parameters characterising harmful intent attributions. We constructed a ‘Bayesian brain’ model of others’ intent, which we fitted to harmful intent and self-interest attributions made over 18 trials, across three different partners. We found that pre-existing paranoia was associated with greater uncertainty about other’s actions. It moderated the relationship between learning rates and harmful intent attributions, making harmful intent attributions less reliant on prior interactions. Overall, the magnitude of harmful intent attributions was directly related to their uncertainty, and importantly, the opposite was true for self-interest attributions. Our results explain how pre-existing paranoia may be the result of an increased need to attend to immediate experiences in determining intentional threat, at the expense of what is already known, and more broadly, they suggest that environments that induce greater probabilities of harmful intent attributions may also induce states of uncertainty, potentially as an adaptive mechanism to better detect threatening others. Importantly, we suggest that if paranoia were able to be explained exclusively by core domain-general alterations we would not observe differential parameter estimates underlying harmful-intent and self-interest attributions.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduction in social learning and increased policy uncertainty about harmful intent is associated with pre-existing paranoid beliefs: Evidence from modelling a modified serial dictator game

et al. 2020

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“…Critically, in our study we uncovered and replicated the behavioral aberrations underlying predictive processing that are aligned on the nonclinical continuum of psychosis. Previous research has also uncovered altered behavior, for example in social inference (Wellstein et al, 2020), self-tickling (Lemaitre et al, 2016), and force matching (Teufel et al, 2010), in individuals with subclinical psychotic experiences. However, a study by Humpston et al (2017), investigating a range of predictive processing behaviors, such as force matching, associative learning, and reversal learning, was not been able to replicate the relationship between altered behavior and psychotic-like experiences in the general population.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical Learning and Inference Is Impaired in the Nonclinical Continuum of Psychosis

et al. 2020

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Our perceptions result from the brain's ability to make inferences, or predictive models, of sensory information. Recently, it has been proposed that psychotic traits may be linked to impaired predictive processes. Here, we examine the brain dynamics underlying statistical learning and inference in stable and volatile environments, in a population of healthy human individuals (N = 75; 36 males, 39 females) with a range of psychotic-like experiences. We measured prediction error responses to sound sequences with electroencephalography, gauged sensory inference explicitly by behaviorally recording sensory statistical learning errors, and used dynamic causal modeling to tap into the underlying neural circuitry. We discuss the findings that were robust to replication across the two experiments (Discovery dataset, N = 31; Validation dataset, N = 44). First, we found that during stable conditions, participants demonstrated greater precision in their predictive model, reflected in a larger prediction error response to unexpected sounds, and decreased statistical learning errors. Moreover, individuals with attenuated prediction errors in stable conditions were found to make greater incorrect predictions about sensory information. Critically, we show that greater errors in statistical learning and inference are related to increased psychotic-like experiences. These findings link neurophysiology to behavior during statistical learning and prediction formation, as well as providing further evidence for the idea of a continuum of psychosis in the healthy, nonclinical population.

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“…Perturbations in those processes have been related to paranoia, learning rates and beliefs about volatility 36,37 . We replicate and extend that work and our own here, delineating how deficits in non-social inference can lead to overconfident self-deception under social influence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A normative account of self-deception, overconfidence, and paranoia

Rossi-Goldthorpe¹,

Yc²,

Leptourgos³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Self-deception, paranoia, and overconfidence involve misbeliefs about self, others, and world. They are often considered mistaken. Here we explore whether they might be adaptive, and further, whether they might be explicable in normative Bayesian terms. We administered a difficult perceptual judgment task with and without social influence (suggestions from a cooperating or competing partner). Crucially, the social influence was uninformative. We found that participants heeded the suggestions most under the most uncertain conditions and that they did so with high confidence, particularly if they were more paranoid. Model fitting to participant behavior revealed that their prior beliefs changed depending on whether the partner was a collaborator or competitor, however, those beliefs did not differ as a function of paranoia. Instead, paranoia, self-deception, and overconfidence were associated with participants’ perceived instability of their own performance. These data are consistent with the idea that self-deception, paranoia, and overconfidence flourish under uncertainty, and have their roots in low self-esteem, rather than excessive social concern. The normative model suggests that spurious beliefs can have value – self-deception is irrational yet can facilitate optimal behavior. This occurs even at the expense of monetary rewards, perhaps explaining why self-deception and paranoia contribute to costly decisions which can spark financial crashes and costly wars.

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Inflexible social inference in individuals with subclinical persecutory delusional tendencies

Cited by 4 publications

References 46 publications

Reduction in social learning and increased policy uncertainty about harmful intent is associated with pre-existing paranoid beliefs: Evidence from modelling a modified serial dictator game

Reduction in social learning and increased policy uncertainty about harmful intent is associated with pre-existing paranoid beliefs: Evidence from modelling a modified serial dictator game

Statistical Learning and Inference Is Impaired in the Nonclinical Continuum of Psychosis

A normative account of self-deception, overconfidence, and paranoia

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