Schizophrenia (Jan 2024)

Action prediction in psychosis

  • Noemi Montobbio,
  • Enrico Zingarelli,
  • Federica Folesani,
  • Mariacarla Memeo,
  • Enrico Croce,
  • Andrea Cavallo,
  • Luigi Grassi,
  • Luciano Fadiga,
  • Stefano Panzeri,
  • Martino Belvederi Murri,
  • Cristina Becchio

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41537-023-00429-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Abstract Aberrant motor-sensory predictive functions have been linked to symptoms of psychosis, particularly reduced attenuation of self-generated sensations and misattribution of self-generated actions. Building on the parallels between prediction of self- and other-generated actions, this study aims to investigate whether individuals with psychosis also demonstrate abnormal perceptions and predictions of others’ actions. Patients with psychosis and matched controls completed a two-alternative object size discrimination task. In each trial, they observed reaching actions towards a small and a large object, with varying levels of temporal occlusion ranging from 10% to 80% of movement duration. Their task was to predict the size of the object that would be grasped. We employed a novel analytic approach to examine how object size information was encoded and read out across progressive levels of occlusion with single-trial resolution. Patients with psychosis exhibited an overall pattern of reduced and discontinuous evidence integration relative to controls, characterized by a period of null integration up to 20% of movement duration, during which they did not read any size information. Surprisingly, this drop in accuracy in the initial integration period was not accompanied by a reduction in confidence. Difficulties in action prediction were correlated with the severity of negative symptoms and impaired functioning in social relationships.