Priming to induce paranoid thought in a non clinical population.

Freeman et al. reported that a substantial minority of the general population has paranoid thoughts while exposed in a virtual environment. This suggested that in a development phase of a virtual reality exposure system for paranoid patients initially a non-clinical sample could be used to evaluate the system's ability to induce paranoid thoughts. To increase the efficiency of such an evaluation, this paper takes the position that when appropriately primed a larger group of a non-clinical sample will display paranoid thoughts. A 2-by-2 experiment was conducted with priming for insecurity and vigilance as a withinsubject factor and prior-paranoid thoughts (low or high) as a between-subjects factor. Before exposure into the virtual world, participants (n = 24) were shown a video and read a text about violence or about mountain animals. While exposed, participants were asked to comment freely on their virtual environment. The results of the experiment confirmed that exposure in a virtual environment could induce paranoid thought. In addition, priming with an aim to create a feeling of insecurity and vigilance increased paranoid comments in the non-clinical group that otherwise would less often exhibit ideas of persecutio

Mental Health and Paranoid Thoughts in College Students from Juarez

Paranoid thoughts are a psychological consequence of the social violence lived by the people in Juarez, which in 2010 was the most violent city in the world. Most people in Juarez report some degree of paranoid thoughts and these thoughts have been related to mental health. This study analyzes the relationship between paranoid thoughts and mental health. The sample consisted of 315 college students with a mean age of 23.05 (SD = 0.59) years, 70.5% females and 29.5% males. Most of the sample was single (86.0%) and married (9.2%). The Paranoid Thoughts Scale and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised were used to measure paranoid thoughts and mental health (e.g. depression, or anxiety), respectively. All of the mental health factors had statistically significant correlations with paranoid thoughts with correlations ranging from .38 to .57. The people that reported higher levels of paranoid thoughts also reported higher levels of psychological problems or distress. Paranoid thoughts can be considered a predictor of low mental health in people from Juarez

Investigating the Existence, Cognitive Attributes and Potential Pathological Consequences of the Extreme Female Brain

The ‘extreme female brain’ (EFB) is derived from the empathising - systemising theory (E-S) which hypothesises that sex differences in cognition exist on a continuum, based on abilities in ‘empathising’ and ‘systemising’ (Baron-Cohen, 2003). The EFB profile; extreme empathising alongside deficient systemising, has received little attention in social cognitive neuroscience research, compared to the extreme male brain, which has advanced the knowledge of sex differences in the expression of autism. Currently, there is no solid evidence of a clinical pathology relating to the EFB nor a marker of cognition associated with a person’s ‘place’ on the E-S continuum. Here, an episodic memory paradigm with social and non-social conditions was given to participants along with measures of empathising and systemising. Scores on the social condition predicted where a person lies on the E-S continuum. The thesis then investigated the hypothesis that schizophrenia is expressed in the feminised profile (Badcock & Crepsi, 2006) and the presumption that empathising and systemising demonstrate a tradeoff. Elements of paranoia were associated with an empathising bias. However, a bias in systemising ability was associated with schizotypy along with a significant overlap in the expression of autistic traits and schizotypy. Therefore, schizophrenia as a whole is unlikely to be the pathology seen in the EFB, rather, the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. A trade-off between empathising and systemising was seen but only in participants over 36 years. These results have significant implications for assessment and treatment of neuropsychological disorders and provide more specific details on the potential EFB pathology. i