Investigating theory of mind in schizophrenia:: influence of verbalization in disorganized and non-disorganized patients

The ability to attribute intentions to others was studied in 13 disorganized and 13 non-disorganized schizophrenic patients, 13 depressed and 13 normal controls. Subjects were asked to complete 28 comic strips requiring theory of mind skills by choosing one out of three answer cards. The answer cards were simple pictures in a first condition and short sentences in a second condition. This study, which used the cognitive neuropsychological approach, underlies the existence of a link between disorganization patterns in schizophrenia and a deficit in the attribution of intentions to others, independently of the pictorial or verbal form of the mode of answering. In addition, results show that the non-disorganized schizophrenic group, depressed and normal controls perform similarly in both pictorial/verbal conditions. The influence of the absence/presence of verbal material on a task investigating theory of mind in schizophrenia is discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.