Patterns of evidence integration in schizophrenia and delusion.

2011

Previous studies documented a bias against disconfirmatory evidence (BADE) in patients affected by schizophrenia spectrum disorders, with some discrepant findings on its relationship with delusions. In order to further investigate the patterns of evidence integration in schizophrenia and delusion, we recruited 40 deluded and non-deluded patients with schizophrenia and 40 healthy control subjects. Participants were administered the BADE test, which consisted of 30 delusion-neutral scenarios, each one progressively described by three subsequent disambiguating statements and providing four types of interpretation to rate for plausibility; at every additional evidence presentation, participants…