Bayesian Analyses of the Effect of Metacognitive Training on Social Cognition Deficits and Overconfidence in Errors. Issue 2 (June 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Köther, Ulf; Vettorazzi, Eik; Veckenstedt, Ruth; Hottenrott, Birgit; Bohn, Francesca; Scheu, Florian; Pfueller, Ute; Roesch-Ely, Daniela; Moritz, Steffen
• Is Part Of: Journal of experimental psychopathology. Volume 8:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 158
• Page End: 174
• Publication Date: 2017-06
• Subjects: psychosis -- schizophrenia -- social cognition -- theory of mind -- Eyes-test -- confidence -- generalized linear mixed models with zero-inflation -- Bayesian inference; Psychology, Pathological -- Periodicals; 616.89
• DOI: 10.5127/jep.054516
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2043-8087

Abstract

Social cognition (SC) impairments in schizophrenia predict interpersonal problems and low functional outcome, which might be aggravated by low (meta-) cognitive awareness of individual symptoms and cognitive biases. Metacognitive Training (MCT) aims to raise patients' awareness of cognitive biases, for example overconfidence in errors. We examined whether MCT reduces high-confident false mental state perceptions and tried to identify possible underlying mechanisms of SC impairments. A total of 150 patients were enrolled in a randomized clinical trial comparing the MCT with cognitive remediation (CogPack ® ) as the active control. Participants were assessed at baseline and at four weeks (post) and further six months (follow-up) later with the Reading the Eyes in the Mind-test also measuring the patients' response confidence. We found that compared to CogPack ® MCT reliably reduced the amount of overconfident SC errors by approximately 40% at follow-up. Additionally, we were able to link several symptomatic features and neuropsychological parameters to SC impairments and overconfidence herein.