The role of information processing biases in psychosis proneness

Abstract

Pathology congruent information-processing biases, the tendency for the information processing system to consistently favour materials whose content corresponds to the pathology’s symptoms and concerns, had been found to be implicated in the aetiology and maintenance of multiple clinical disorders, with ample research established in emotional disorders. Relatively, little work had been done on psychosis, in which research to date on biased interpretation mainly focused on interpretation of auditory hallucinations and the associated distress. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effects of pathology congruent interpretation bias in paranoia on the prediction of psychosis proneness, the subclinical manifestation of psychosis phenotypes. Cross-sectional data on biased information processing and psychosis proneness were collected from 154 individuals recruited in the normal population via cognitive and self-report measures. A series of hierarchical regression analyses were performed and results suggest that negative information processing bias significantly contributes to the prediction of psychosis proneness. There is also evidence that interpretation bias plays a mediating role in the prediction of psychosis proneness only when the direction of bias was congruent to the pathology’s symptoms and concerns. The discerned mediating role of pathology congruent interpretation bias contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying psychosis proneness. Its clinical implications in terms early identification and target for intervention are further discussed.