Nonbizarre Delusions as Strategic Deception

Hagen, Edward H.

doi:10.1201/9781420051377.ch9

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Further supportive data for the role of affect have yet to be acquired for individuals suffering the Cotard or Fregoli delusions. Nevertheless, the noted finding in the context of the Capgras syndrome (Hagen, 2008 ) supports the hypothesis that emotional processes play a role in at least some delusions. In the following sections, we discuss how such processes could interplay with established models of aberrant belief formation.…”

Section: The Possible Role Of Affect In Formation and Maintenance Of supporting

confidence: 62%

Cognition-Emotion Dysinteraction in Schizophrenia

Antičević

Corlett

2012

Front. Psychology

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Evolving theories of schizophrenia emphasize a “disconnection” in distributed fronto-striatal-limbic neural systems, which may give rise to breakdowns in cognition and emotional function. We discuss these diverse domains of function from the perspective of disrupted neural circuits involved in “cold” cognitive vs. “hot” affective operations and the interplay between these processes. We focus on three research areas that highlight cognition-emotion dysinteractions in schizophrenia: First, we discuss the role of cognitive deficits in the “maintenance” of emotional information. We review recent evidence suggesting that motivational abnormalities in schizophrenia may in part arise due to a disrupted ability to “maintain” affective information over time. Here, dysfunction in a prototypical “cold” cognitive operation may result in “affective” deficits in schizophrenia. Second, we discuss abnormalities in the detection and ascription of salience, manifest as excessive processing of non-emotional stimuli and inappropriate distractibility. We review emerging evidence suggesting deficits in some, but not other, specific emotional processes in schizophrenia – namely an intact ability to perceive emotion “in-the-moment” but poor prospective valuation of stimuli and heightened reactivity to stimuli that ought to be filtered. Third, we discuss abnormalities in learning mechanisms that may give rise to delusions, the fixed, false, and often emotionally charged beliefs that accompany psychosis. We highlight the role of affect in aberrant belief formation, mostly ignored by current theoretical models. Together, we attempt to provide a consilient overview for how breakdowns in neural systems underlying affect and cognition in psychosis interact across symptom domains. We conclude with a brief treatment of the neurobiology of schizophrenia and the need to close our explanatory gap between cellular-level hypotheses and complex behavioral symptoms observed in this illness.

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Section: The Possible Role Of Affect In Formation and Maintenance Of supporting

confidence: 62%

Cognition-Emotion Dysinteraction in Schizophrenia

Antičević

Corlett

2012

Front. Psychology

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“…Second, Singh highlights the self-deception that must be required to convince oneself of one's shamanic abilities to successfully convince others. We find a similar proposal from Ed Hagen, the evolutionary biologist, when he considers delusional disorder: Such psychotic beliefs often involve grand conspiracies and significant inside knowledge on behalf of the patient that can be shared with others, sometimes for considerable secondary gain (Hagen 2008).…”

Section: Stefan Linquistsupporting

confidence: 58%

Financial alchemists and financial shamans

Johnson

2018

Behav Brain Sci

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Professional money management appears to require little skill, yet its practitioners command astronomical salaries. Singh's theory of shamanism provides one possible explanation: Financial professionals are the shamans of the global economy. They cultivate the perception of superhuman traits, maintain grueling initiation rituals, and rely on esoteric divination rituals. An anthropological view of markets can usefully supplement economic and psychological approaches.

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“…119 Social defeat is an animal paradigm in which defeat to a dominant conspecific engenders a sensitized dopamine system in experimental animals. This has been extrapolated to humans in an attempt to explain the increased propensity to psychosis in immigrants that has been noted in epidemiology studies.…”

Section: Predictive Coding Of Self and Othermentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Delusions: Reducing Uncertainty Through Basic and Computational Neuroscience

Feeney

Groman

Taylor

et al. 2017

Schizophrenia Bulletin

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Delusions, the fixed false beliefs characteristic of psychotic illness, have long defied understanding despite their response to pharmacological treatments (e.g., D 2 receptor antagonists). However, it can be challenging to discern what makes beliefs delusional compared with other unusual or erroneous beliefs. We suggest mapping the putative biology to clinical phenomenology with a cognitive psychology of belief, culminating in a teleological approach to beliefs and brain function supported by animal and computational models. We argue that organisms strive to minimize uncertainty about their future states by forming and maintaining a set of beliefs (about the organism and the world) that are robust, but flexible. If uncertainty is generated endogenously, beliefs begin to depart from consensual reality and can manifest into delusions. Central to this scheme is the notion that formal associative learning theory can provide an explanation for the development and persistence of delusions. Beliefs, in animals and humans, may be associations between representations (e.g., of cause and effect) that are formed by minimizing uncertainty via new learning and attentional allocation. Animal research has equipped us with a deep mechanistic basis of these processes, which is now being applied to delusions. This work offers the exciting possibility of completing revolutions of translation, from the bedside to the bench and back again. The more we learn about animal beliefs, the more we may be able to apply to human beliefs and their aberrations, enabling a deeper mechanistic understanding.Key words: delusions/behavioral neuroscience/cognitive neuroscience/computational psychiatry/associative learning The End of the World and the Beginning of a TheoryIn December 1954, the Chicago Tribune reported that Dorothy Martin was relaying a prophecy from extra-terrestrials that the world was about to end. A number of followers flocked to her but her prophecy did not manifest. She ultimately settled in Sedona, Arizona where she lived until she was 92, continuing to proselytize about aliens but evading interaction with psychiatric services. Did Martin have delusions? What about her acolytes? Defining, explaining, and ultimately understanding delusions has proven challenging (see Freeman and Bebbington, this issue). In this article, we describe how neuroscientists have tried to meet that challenge. The approach demands some simplifying assumptions. Basic neuroscience in preclinical models will not recapitulate all of the features of delusions. However, simple models can be useful.

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Nonbizarre Delusions as Strategic Deception

Cited by 7 publications

References 65 publications

Cognition-Emotion Dysinteraction in Schizophrenia

Cognition-Emotion Dysinteraction in Schizophrenia

Financial alchemists and financial shamans

Explaining Delusions: Reducing Uncertainty Through Basic and Computational Neuroscience

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