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General Versus Person-Specific Models Of Psychotic-Like Symptoms, Thanh Phuoc Le
General Versus Person-Specific Models Of Psychotic-Like Symptoms, Thanh Phuoc Le
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disease and carries a profound burden of illness and disability. Schizotypy, reflecting personality traits associated with a vulnerability for schizophrenia-spectrum pathology, is characterized, in part, by a tendency to experience psychotic-like symptoms (PLS). Perceived social support, or lack thereof, plays a role in the intensity of PLS. Etiological mechanisms underlying PLS, such as monolithic social support, are putatively expected to be common across individuals sharing elevated schizotypal traits. This “nomothetic” model fails to appreciate that social support is multidimensional and likely idiographic in its effects on PLS. Another salient issue that arises when attempting to …
Examining The Role Of Episodic And Semantic Networks In Anhedonia: Applying The Accessibility Model Of Emotional Self-Report To Psychometrically-Defined Schizotypy, Kyle Robert Mitchell
Examining The Role Of Episodic And Semantic Networks In Anhedonia: Applying The Accessibility Model Of Emotional Self-Report To Psychometrically-Defined Schizotypy, Kyle Robert Mitchell
LSU Master's Theses
Individuals with schizophrenia exhibit a range of abnormalities in self-reported non-current experience of pleasure, but undisrupted current experience of pleasure. Several researchers have sought to address the mechanism of this deficit, yielding useful models of anhedonia. The accessibility model of emotional self-report suggests that deficits in hedonic response are due to differential activation of, and reliance upon, semantic and episodic memory systems. While this model has been proposed as an explanation of the deficits in hedonic response in schizophrenia, it has not been experimentally validated, and it remains to be seen whether the model will hold across the schizophrenia spectrum. …
Social Functioning In Schizotypy: An Exploration Of Communicative Effectiveness Through Speech Analysis And Observer Rated Performance In A Socially Demanding Task, Tracey Lauren Auster
Social Functioning In Schizotypy: An Exploration Of Communicative Effectiveness Through Speech Analysis And Observer Rated Performance In A Socially Demanding Task, Tracey Lauren Auster
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Individuals with schizotypal traits have demonstrated sub-clinical symptoms of psychosis (e.g. perceptual disturbances, self-reported social functioning impairment, self-reported memory problems, and delusions). However, the evidence has been mixed regarding what impairments exist, particularly with regards to social functioning domains. As schizotypy is posited to reflect an underlying vulnerability for development of clinical levels of psychosis/risk conversion, individuals with these traits are an important group to study in order to identify these vulnerabilities. Research has indicated that current measures of social functioning (whether they are localized objective measures of verbal and non-verbal communication or global self-report of functioning) are missing some …
Effort-Based Decision-Making In Schizotypy, Jessica Elaina Mcgovern
Effort-Based Decision-Making In Schizotypy, Jessica Elaina Mcgovern
LSU Master's Theses
Avolition/apathy, defined as reduced initiation of or persistence in goal-directed behavior, is a pernicious, core negative symptom of schizophrenia. While deficits in effort-based decision-making have been proposed to underlie negative symptom deficits, it remains unknown whether subjective or objective motivation deficits are evident in individuals with elevated schizotypy, a trait associated with putative latent liability of developing psychosis. Thus, the present study examined whether and how objective and subjective motivation deficits manifest in individuals high (n = 57) versus low (n = 58) in schizotypy traits (based on a median-split of total experience scores on the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire –Brief …
Social Connectedness Deficits In College Students With Schizotypy, Laura Brown
Social Connectedness Deficits In College Students With Schizotypy, Laura Brown
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Schizophrenia is a devastating disorder characterized by a variety of bizarre behaviors as well as deficits in neurocognition, social cognition, and functioning. This study focuses on individuals with schizotypy—those with the purported genetic liability for schizophrenia that do not display the full disorder. Prior research has identified potential risk factors for schizophrenia by studying this population, including deficits in social cognition. Studies of social cognition in individuals with schizotypy, however, have yielded inconsistent findings that have failed to fully explain the range of functional deficits seen in these individuals. Social connectedness, in contrast, may be a more useful risk factor …
Schizotypy: The Dynamic Relationship Between Trait And State Processes, Rebecca K. Macaulay
Schizotypy: The Dynamic Relationship Between Trait And State Processes, Rebecca K. Macaulay
LSU Master's Theses
Importantly, elevations in emotional reactivity to stress are often found in individuals vulnerable for psychosis. This study investigated several meaningful factors that appear to either increase vulnerability to stress (degree of schizotypy traits, trait negative affect, low perceived control, and impaired selective attention), or increase resiliency to stress (trait positive affect). A modified Posner spatial-cueing task utilizing affective cues was employed to assess selective attention within a neutral and an uncontrollable stressor condition. Between group differences (high, medium and low in schizotypy traits) and interactions between affective traits, state affect, and perceived control were evaluated in order to shed light …
The Moderating Effects Of Perceived Intentionality: Exploring The Relationships Between Ideas Of Reference, Paranoia, And Social Anxiety In Schizotypy, Sean Cameron Morrison
The Moderating Effects Of Perceived Intentionality: Exploring The Relationships Between Ideas Of Reference, Paranoia, And Social Anxiety In Schizotypy, Sean Cameron Morrison
LSU Master's Theses
Ideas of reference (IOR), paranoia, and social anxiety are three common symptoms of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, which appear to be conceptually related. However, the precise nature of these relationships is unclear. A new measure that assesses perceived intentionality (PI), a social-cognitive bias for perceiving the actions of others during unpleasant social situations as being directed at oneself in an intentionally malicious manner, has provided preliminary evidence for a link between PI and paranoia. The primary aim of this study was to examine the moderating role of PI on the relationships between IOR and paranoia, and between IOR and social anxiety amongst …
The Role Of Atypical Semantic Activation In Schizotypy: Implications For Odd Speech And Creativity, Kyle S. Minor
The Role Of Atypical Semantic Activation In Schizotypy: Implications For Odd Speech And Creativity, Kyle S. Minor
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Individuals with schizophrenia tend to demonstrate patterns of atypical semantic activation, which are characterized by increased activation of weakly associated words within the semantic network. Although atypical semantic activation is associated with formal thought disorder, tangential speech, and poor long-term functioning in schizophrenia, very little is known about this variable in individuals with schizotypy, or the 10% of the population who demonstrate personality traits presumed to reflect genetic liability to schizophrenia. In this project, we employed highly sensitive laboratory procedures to test whether individuals with schizotypy (n = 45) display increased atypical semantic activation compared to a non-schizotypy group (n …
Smoking Topography And Smoking-Related Outcome Expectancies In Smokers With Schizotypy, Diana Williams Stewart
Smoking Topography And Smoking-Related Outcome Expectancies In Smokers With Schizotypy, Diana Williams Stewart
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Individuals with schizophrenia have extremely high smoking rates (70-88%). Compared to smokers in the general population, smokers with schizophrenia have more intense smoking patterns (e.g., more cigarettes per day; smoke stronger cigarettes; higher nicotine dependence, carbon monoxide (CO) boosts, cotinine, and nicotine levels; more extreme smoking topography) and more positive smoking outcome expectancies. However, the relationship between smoking and symptomatology is quite complex. Insight might be gleaned by studying the relationship between smoking and schizotypy, or the putative genetic vulnerability to developing schizophrenia, as it avoids many confounds associated with schizophrenia. This study investigated schizotypy symptoms, smoking characteristics and behaviors, …
Affective Reactivity Of Speech Disturbances In Schizotypy, Kyle Stuart Minor
Affective Reactivity Of Speech Disturbances In Schizotypy, Kyle Stuart Minor
LSU Master's Theses
Speech disturbances (SD) are a stable, pernicious symptom of schizophrenia that increase when negative emotion and/or arousal are elicited. While considerable research has examined SD in patients with schizophrenia, much less is known about individuals at risk for the disorder, who demonstrate schizophrenia-like, or schizotypic, traits. The present study examined SD and speech reactivity to stress, termed affective reactivity (AR), produced during a laboratory procedure in separate groups of controls and individuals with psychometrically identified schizotypy. This project had two primary aims: 1) to examine SD severity across schizotypy symptoms and 2) to examine how SD varies as a function …