Theory of Mind Deficit in Psychosis: s it Specific to Schizophrenia?

This project was implemented to compare the deficit patterns of Theory of Mind (TOM) in three groups of schizophrenic patients, psychotic manic patients, and normal subjects. The subjects of the study comprised three groups of 19 patients with schizophrenia, 15 patients with psychotic mania, and 16 normal subjects. To assess TOM ability, collection of data was completed by two first-order false belief tasks,two second-order false belief tasks, and two comic strips. All subjects were appraised on the basis of intelligence quotient (IQ), symptomatology, and the amount of medication taken. The two groups of schizophrenic patients and psychotic mania performed worse than the normal subjects in cumulative score of false belief tasks, but there was no significant difference between the two clinical groups. Furthermore, the psychotic mania group presented a worse per-formance than the normal subjects in a second-order false belief task. Other differences were not re-markable. No significant difference was found in the IQ scores between the three groups. Considering the presence of TOM deficit in psychotic mania as well, such a deficit might not then be specific to patients with schizophrenia and may be present in the other kinds of psy-chosis.