Psychotic Experiences in Schizophrenia and Sensitivity to Sensory Evidence
Open accessAbstract
Perceptual inference depends on an optimal integration of current sensory evidence with prior beliefs about the environment. Alterations of this process have been related to the emergence of positive symptoms in schizophrenia. However, it has remained unclear whether delusions and hallucinations arise from an increased or decreased weighting of prior beliefs relative to sensory evidence. To investigate the relation of this prior-to-likelihood ratio to positive symptoms in schizophrenia, we devised a novel experimental paradigm which gradually manipulates perceptually ambiguous visual stimuli by disambiguating stimulus information. As a proxy for likelihood precision, we assessed the sensitivity of individual participants to sensory evidence. As a surrogate for the precision of prior beliefs in perceptual stability, we measured phase duration in ambiguity. Relative to healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia showed a stronger increment in congruent perceptual states for increasing levels of disambiguating stimulus evidence. Sensitivity to sensory evidence correlated positively with the individual patients' severity of perceptual anomalies and hallucinations. Moreover, the severity of such experiences correlated negatively with phase duration. Our results indicate that perceptual anomalies and hallucinations are associated with a shift of perceptual inference toward sensory evidence and away from prior beliefs. This reduced prior-to-likelihood ratio in sensory processing may contribute to the phenomenon of aberrant salience, which has been suggested to give rise to the false inferences underlying psychotic experiences.
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Patients with schizophrenia put little weight on prediction and much weight on sensory evidence.
“However, other studies reported that patients with schizophrenia put little weight on prediction and much weight on sensory evidence (18, 19).”
From A Predictive Coding Perspective on Mismatch Negativity Impairment in Schizophrenia (2020) · cites this paper as [19]
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A Predictive Coding Perspective on Mismatch Negativity Impairment in Schizophrenia
Kirihara, K., Tada, M., Koshiyama, D., Fujioka, M., Usui, K., Araki, T., & Kasai, K. (2020) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00660 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
“However, other studies reported that patients with schizophrenia put little weight on prediction and much weight on sensory evidence (18, 19).”
BackgroundHaarsma, J., Deveci, N., Corbin, N., Callaghan, M. F., & Kok, P. (2023) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0998-23.2023 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Mikus, N., Lamm, C., & Mathys, C. (2025) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2024.08.021 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
- Authors
- Weilnhammer, V., Röd, L., Eckert, A.-L., Stuke, H., Heinz, A., & Sterzer, P.
- Affiliations
- Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (DE)
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Weilnhammer, Veith
- Venue
- Schizophrenia Bulletin
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2020-02-24
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 927-936
- ISSN
- 0586-7614 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-1701
- PMC
- PMC7345814
- OpenAlex
- W3009027713
- Cited by
- 65
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 5.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
- Locations
- Schizophrenia Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Berlin Institute of Health
- Deutsche Forschergemeinschaft (HE 2597/19-1, STE 1430/8-1)
- Einstein Center for Neurosciences
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Hallucinations in medical conditions
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Keywords
- schizophrenia, psychotic experiences
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Bayes Theorem, Female, Hallucinations, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Perceptual Disorders, Psychotic Disorders, Schizophrenia, Vision Disparity, Young Adult
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