Remigiusz Szczepanowski

The role of self-disturbances and cognitive biases in the relationship between traumatic life events and psychosis proneness in a non-clinical sample

BACKGROUND Traumatic life events have been established as an environmental risk factor for psychosis. However, the exact mechanisms by which traumatic life events increase risk for psychosis are unknown. In the present study we tested an integrative model of traumatic life events being related to psychosis proneness via self-disturbances and cognitive biases. METHODS The sample consisted of 653 healthy people. Traumatic life events, self-disturbances, cognitive biases and psychosis proneness were assessed with self-report questionnaires. The direct and an indirect model of the relationship between traumatic life events and psychosis proneness were compared using path analyses with structural equation modelling in a cross-sectional study. RESULTS There was a significant direct effect of traumatic life events on psychosis proneness. However, path analysis suggested better fit of the indirect model including paths from trauma to psychosis proneness via cognitive biases and self-disturbances. There were significant paths from traumatic life events to cognitive biases and self-disorders. Self-disorders significantly predicted cognitive biases. Finally, cognitive biases and self-disorders significantly predicted psychosis proneness. Exclusion of any paths, apart from direct path in the model, significantly reduced model fitness. DISCUSSION The results revealed that a direct relationship between trauma and psychosis proneness became insignificant when taking into account the influence of self-disorders and cognitive biases. This suggests that the interactions between disrupted self-experience, impaired information processing and traumatic life events are of importance in psychosis proneness. This model should be further tested in a longitudinal study on a clinical sample.

Neuronal Network and Awareness Measures of Post-Decision Wagering Behavior in Detecting Masked Emotional Faces

Awareness can be measured by investigating the patterns of associations between discrimination performance (first-order decisions) and confidence judgments (knowledge). In a typical post-decision wagering (PDW) task, participants judge their performance by wagering on each decision made in a detection task. If participants are aware, they wager advantageously by betting high whenever decisions are correct and low for incorrect decisions. Thus, PDW—like other awareness measures with confidence ratings—quantifies if the knowledge upon which they make their decisions is conscious. The present study proposes a new method of assessing the association between advantageous wagering and awareness in the PDW task with a combination of log-linear (LLM) modeling and neural network simulation to reveal the computational patterns that establish this association. We applied the post-decision wagering measure to a backward masking experiment in which participants made first-order decisions about whether or not a masked emotional face was present, and then used imaginary or real monetary stakes to judge the correctness of their initial decisions. The LLM analysis was then used to examine whether advantageous wagering was aware by testing a hypothesis of partial associations between metacognitive judgments and accuracy of first-order decisions. The LLM outcomes were submitted into a feed-forward neural network. The network served as a general approximator that was trained to learn relationships between input wagers and the output of the corresponding log-linear function. The simulation resulted in a simple network architecture that successfully accounted for wagering behavior. This was a feed-forward network unit consisting of one hidden neuron layer with four inputs and one output. In addition, the study indicated no effect of the monetary incentive cues on wagering strategies, although we observed that only low-wager input weights of the neural network considerably contributed to advantageous wagering.

Dysfunctional meta-cognitive beliefs mediate the relation between temperament traits and hallucination-proneness in non-clinical population

We investigated whether dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs (negative beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of thoughts) mediate the relationship between temperamental characteristics of behavior and hallucinatory-like experiences in healthy subjects (n=137). Our analyses showed that four temperamental traits (emotional reactivity, perseveration, endurance and briskness) were mediated by negative beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of thoughts in relation to hallucination proneness. Our research tentatively suggests that temperament affects hallucination proneness via metacognition.

When a (precise) awareness measure became a (sketchy) introspective report

13 Subjective measures of awareness, such as confidence ratings (CR), post-decision wagering (PDW) or the perceptual 14 awareness scale (PAS) have recently been the object of an intense debate. Different such methods have now been system15 atically compared in several recent studies (see e.g. Dienes & Seth, 2010; Sandberg, Timmermans, Overgaard, & Cleeremans, 16 2010; Wierzchoń, Asanowicz, Paulewicz & Cleeremans, 2012). Each method has its pros and cons, but they all aim to offer 17 reliable quantitative measures of awareness as reported subjectively by participants. Importantly, such methods contrast 18 both with introspective reports, which have been criticized as insensitive and imprecise, and with objective measures, which 19 fail to reflect subjective experience per se. Subjective methods usually quantify awareness reports with a pre-set taxonomy 20 of awareness judgments. 21 To our surprise, in their commentary, Sandberg, Bibby, and Overgaard (2013) question our statement that PAS ‘‘is a 22 4-point verbal scale that attempts to measure the quality of conscious experience directly’’ (Szczepanowski, Traczyk, Wierz23 choń, & Cleeremans, 2013, p. 213) and suggest we used PAS in a different manner than originally intended. The authors claim 24 that the scale should reflect the way participants prefer to report and propose to adjust the scale taxonomy depending on the 25 type of stimuli used in the task rather than use – the 4-point scale each time. Thus, the scale should undergo a new 26 calibration procedure whenever new stimuli are used. Alternatively, to avoid scale recalibration, they propose that amend 27 the procedure so as to incorporate ‘‘(1) a full instruction explaining the meaning of each scale point in detail, (2) a pilot test 28 with a good amount of trials (e.g. 30–50) in which the experimenter interrupts the subject frequently to ask about the use of 29 the individual scale points (e.g. ‘‘I noticed you just reported ‘‘brief glimpse’’ – why did you do that/what did you mean with 30 that/how would you define brief glimpse?’’)’’ (Sandberg et al., 2013, p. 808). 31 In our view, those recommendations, far from solving any measurement issues, would rather substantially burden admin32 istration of the PAS scale, decreasing both its applicability and reliability. We address both points in the following, finding 33 ourselves in the somewhat paradoxical position of having to defend PAS against criticism expressed by its very proponents. 34 First, it is not clear why Sandberg et al. (2013) propose to recalibrate the scale each time a new type of a stimuli are inves35 tigated. To our knowledge, there is no evidence that this is necessary. While the scale indeed originally stemmed from intro36 spective-like experiments in which participants were extensively interviewed about their preferred categories to describe 37 degrees of visual awareness (Ramsøy & Overgaard, 2004), few subsequent studies used this involved procedure. The pilot 38 study itself was replicated a few times with different stimuli (Overgaard, Nielsen, & Fuglsang-Frederiksen, 2004; Overgaard, 39 Rote, Mouridsen, & Ramsøy, 2006), always resulting in the very same taxonomy. All other studies used the 4-point scale. We 40 also found at least two studies for which a pilot study was not reported at all (Sandberg et al., 2010; Sandberg, Bibby, 41 Timmermans, Cleeremans, & Overgaard, 2011). Thus, it seems that PAS has typically been used in the manner we report 42 in our study.

Mechanizmy tłumienia niepożądanych odczuć i myśli w ujęciu metapoznawczym

In the context of processing unwanted thoughts, memories or emotion, the main cognitive goal of individual is to suppress such undesired contents by keeping them out of consciousness. This paper provides an overview of empirical and clinical studies as well as theoretical models regarding suppression mechanisms of unwanted contents. Our main focus was to clarify controversial aspects related to efficiency of suppression in regulating behaviour. In particular, we emphasised significance of metacognition for suppression claiming that successful suppression requires concordant combination of both control and monitoring processes.