Impaired belief revision yet intact information seeking in positive schizotypy: A modified task of bias against disconfirmatory evidence

TL;DR

People with positive schizotypy show rigid beliefs despite seeking information, suggesting problems with integrating evidence rather than lack of curiosity.

Contribution

This study introduces a modified task to assess belief inflexibility and information seeking in psychosis-proneness.

Findings

Participants with higher positive schizotypy did not skip disambiguating information more often.

They showed belief inflexibility by rating false and true explanations as equally plausible.

Impaired information integration, not reduced information seeking, likely causes belief rigidity in positive schizotypy.

Abstract

Cognitive models of delusions emphasize the role of bias against disconfirmatory evidence (BADE) in maintaining false beliefs, but sources of this tendency remain elusive. While impaired information integration could be an explanation for this tendency, the lack of information seeking motive could also result in disregard for new evidence once a (false) belief is formed. The role of information seeking in the association between psychosis-proneness and belief inflexibility has not been investigated in the context of a social interpretation task. In this study, we modified the Interpretation Inflexibility Task (IIT), which assess bias against disconfirmatory evidence in interpersonal contexts, to permit assessment of information seeking by allowing participants to skip seeing increasingly disambiguating information (in the form of pictures at varying degrees of degradation). A robust regression analysis was conducted to examine whether increasing severity of positive schizotypy is associated with more frequent skipping of later trial stages, to examine information seeking. Controlling for the number of pictures seen by participants, a robust mixed effects analysis was conducted to investigate the associations of positive schizotypy, trait anxiety, and the emotional valence of the scenario with a measure of belief revision. Participants higher in positive schizotypy did not opt out of seeing disambiguating information more frequently, p = 0.65, ß = 0.04; despite this, they still exhibited heightened belief inflexibility by rating the lures and true explanations as equally plausible, p < 0.001, ß = -0.32. These results suggest that bias against disconfirmatory evidence in positive schizotypy is unlikely a result of reduced information seeking, leaving impaired information integration as a more likely source.

Figures