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Content specific information processing and persecutory delusions: An investigation using the emotional Stroop test
Author(s) -
Bentall Richard P.,
Kaney Sue
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
british journal of medical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.102
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 2044-8341
pISSN - 0007-1129
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1989.tb02845.x
Subject(s) - psychology , stroop effect , paranoid schizophrenia , paranoia , delusion , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , affect (linguistics) , cognitive psychology , test (biology) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , psychosis , psychiatry , cognition , communication , paleontology , biology
Attentional bias was investigated in patients suffering from persecutory delusions and matched psychiatric and normal controls, using the emotional Stroop task. Subjects were required to colour name words which were either meaningless strings of Os, neutral words, words indicating negative affect, or words judged to be of paranoid content. In comparison with the control subjects the deluded patients demonstrated a selective increase of response time for the paranoid words. A second analysis using indices of interference produced even more marked results. The relevance of these findings for the understanding of delusional thinking is discussed.