Abstract
Objective: to explore the notion that difficulties in
metacognitive functioning are a core pre-psychotic
feature of emerging schizophrenia and its spectrum.
Method: Seventy-eight help-seeking, non-psychotic
adolescents (age 13-18) were assessed with the Prodromal
Questionnaire (PQ), the Structured Interview for
Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS), two scales of social and
role functioning, and a metacognitive version of two
non-social (verbal memory and executive functioning)
and two social (facial emotion perception and theory
of Mind) cognition tasks. In addition to the standard
administration of the tasks, subjects were also asked
to rate their level of confidence in the correctness of
each answer, and to choose whether they wanted it to be
“counted” toward their overall performance score on the
task. Each “volunteered” response received a bonus of
5 cents if correct, but an equal penalty if wrong.
Results: Levels of cognitive and metacognitive functioning
were not significantly different between subjects at high
versus low risk. However, the prediction of psychosocial
functioning reached significance when adding the novel
metacognitive measures to the conventional measures
of cognitive and social-cognitive abilities.
Discussion: these results challenge the robustness of
the link between neurocognitive deficits and risk for
schizophrenia. However, they suggest that metacognition plays an important moderating role in the association
between neurocognition and functional outcome before
acute onset of the illness
metacognitive functioning are a core pre-psychotic
feature of emerging schizophrenia and its spectrum.
Method: Seventy-eight help-seeking, non-psychotic
adolescents (age 13-18) were assessed with the Prodromal
Questionnaire (PQ), the Structured Interview for
Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS), two scales of social and
role functioning, and a metacognitive version of two
non-social (verbal memory and executive functioning)
and two social (facial emotion perception and theory
of Mind) cognition tasks. In addition to the standard
administration of the tasks, subjects were also asked
to rate their level of confidence in the correctness of
each answer, and to choose whether they wanted it to be
“counted” toward their overall performance score on the
task. Each “volunteered” response received a bonus of
5 cents if correct, but an equal penalty if wrong.
Results: Levels of cognitive and metacognitive functioning
were not significantly different between subjects at high
versus low risk. However, the prediction of psychosocial
functioning reached significance when adding the novel
metacognitive measures to the conventional measures
of cognitive and social-cognitive abilities.
Discussion: these results challenge the robustness of
the link between neurocognitive deficits and risk for
schizophrenia. However, they suggest that metacognition plays an important moderating role in the association
between neurocognition and functional outcome before
acute onset of the illness
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 34-43 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| State | Published - 2014 |