Experiences of alien control in schizophrenia reflect a disorder in the central monitoring of action
Abstract
Twenty-three acute psychotic patients who were drug free at the time of testing performed a motor task designed to elicit many errors. Normal subjects and many of the psychotic patients were able to correct these errors in the absence of visual feedback. The ability to make such corrections depends on the subject knowing what response he has just made. Patients with experiences of alien control of their thoughts and actions who formed a subgroup of those classified as schizophrenic, were significantly less likely to make error corrections in the absence of visual feedback. This result is consistent with our previous suggestion (Frith, 1987) that these symptoms are a consequence of problems with the central monitoring of responses.
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Predictive coding is more generalized than earlier accounts, which tended to localize the pathology to a specific brain area or psychological function.
“One strength of predictive coding is that it is more generalized than earlier accounts, which tended to localize the pathology to a specific brain area or psychological function, e.g. the pathway connecting the subiculum to the nucleus accumbens (43), striatal dopamine release (47, 48), or altered corollary discharge (50).”
From The Predictive Coding Account of Psychosis (2018) · cites this paper as [50]
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- Authors
- Frith, C. D., & Done, D. J.
- ORCID
- Done, D. John
- Venue
- Psychological Medicine
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 1989-05
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 359-363
- ISSN
- 0033-2917 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-8978
- OpenAlex
- W2163725438
- Cited by
- 551
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 25.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- University of Hertfordshire Research Archive (University of Hertfordshire) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Free Will and Agency
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Keywords
- schizophrenia, error correction, visual feedback, motor tasks, acute psychosis, self-monitoring
- MeSH terms
- Affective Disorders, Psychotic, Arousal, Attention, Delusions, Humans, Orientation, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Play and Playthings, Psychomotor Performance, Reality Testing, Mental Recall, Schizophrenic Psychology
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