Reasoning under uncertainty in deluded schizophrenic patients: a longitudinal study

Several current hypotheses consider the process of attribution of importance to stimuli and the integration of actually perceived reality with experience as a cognitive base for the genesis of delusions. We tested these models by a comparison of deluded schizophrenics, healthy controls, and anxious patients on reasoning under uncertainty. Reasoning under uncertainty was examined in currently deluded schizophrenics (n = 29), in 16 of them also in remission, in normal control groups (n = 35), and in anxious patients (n = 31) using a probabilistic inference task. Acutely psychotic schizophrenics were less ready than normal subjects, anxious patients, and schizophrenics, in remission to modify their judgement in probabilistic situation confronted with potentially disconfirmatory data. They were also less prone than anxious patients and schizophrenics in remission to correct their estimate confronted with confirmatory data. The data support the hypothesis of a weaker influence of incoming stimuli on reasoning under uncertainty as a cognitive base of the maintenance of delusions. (C) 1999 Elsevier, Paris.