Are theory of mind deficits in understanding intentions of others associated with persecutory delusions?
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 11, 2026

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling
Published on: April 6, 2018
Stephanie Mehl1, Winfried Rief, Eva Lüllmann
1Department of Psychiatry, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University, Bonn, Germany. Stephanie.mehl@ukb.uni-bonn.de
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of the Theory of Mind ability to infer intentions of others and delusions in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. In a cross-sectional design, patients with acute persecutory delusions (PD) (n = 33), patients with remitted persecutory delusions (PD-rem) (n = 25), and non-clinical controls (n = 58) completed a movie task, in which they had to infer the characters' intentions and emotions and a false-belief task. Delusions were rated by observers and by the patients. Patients with PD were specifically impaired in the ability to infer intentions compared with patients with remitted delusions and controls. The ability to infer intentions predicted a significant amount of variance in delusions, even when executive functioning was controlled. Implications for models explaining the development and maintenance of delusions are discussed.
More Related Videos
06:42Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
05:51Exploring the Use of Isolated Expressions and Film Clips to Evaluate Emotion Recognition by People with Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: May 15, 2016
Related Concept Videos
Beck's Cognitive Therapy
Arbitrary Inference
Arbitrary inference involves making conclusions without sufficient...
Personality Disorders: Paranoid and Schizoid
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Paranoid personality disorder is...
Theory of Attribution I: Correspondent Inference Theory
Positive Symptoms Schizophrenia: Hallucinations and Delusions
Hallucinations
Hallucinations in...
Theory of Attribution II: Kelley's Covariation Theory
Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia: Hallucinations and Delusions
Thought Disorders
Disorganized and unusual thought processes mark thought disorders in schizophrenia. One key feature is disorganized speech, where an individual's conversation includes loosely...