Background Various neurocognitive models explore perceptual distortions and hallucinations in schizophrenia and the general population. A variant of predictive coding account suggests that strong priors, like cognitive expectancy, may influence perception. This study examines if stronger cognitive expectancies result in more auditory false percepts in clinical and healthy control groups, investigates group differences, and explores the association between false percepts and hallucinations. Study Design Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia with current auditory hallucinations (n = 51) and without hallucinations (n = 66) and healthy controls (n = 51) underwent the False Perception Task under various expectancy conditions. All groups were examined for the presence and severity of hallucinations or hallucinatory-like experiences. Study Results We observed a main effect of condition across all groups, ie, the stronger the cognitive expectancy, the greater the ratio of auditory false percepts. However, there was no group effect for the ratio of auditory false percepts. Despite modest pairwise correlations in the hallucinating group, the ratio of auditory false percepts was not predicted by levels of hallucinations and hallucinatory-like experiences in a linear mixed model. Conclusions The current study demonstrates that strong priors in the form of cognitive expectancies affect perception and play a role in perceptual disturbances. There is also a tentative possibility that overreliance on strong priors may be associated with hallucinations in currently hallucinating subjects. Possible, avoidable confounding factors are discussed in detail.

中文翻译：

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精神分裂症患者的认知预期与幻听和幻听样经历的关联


背景各种神经认知模型探索精神分裂症和普通人群的知觉扭曲和幻觉。预测编码帐户的一种变体表明，强先验（例如认知预期）可能会影响感知。这项研究检查了更强的认知预期是否会导致临床和健康对照组出现更多的听觉错误知觉，调查群体差异，并探讨错误知觉与幻觉之间的关联。研究设计 被诊断患有精神分裂症的目前有幻听的患者 (n = 51) 和无幻听的患者 (n = 66) 以及健康对照组 (n = 51) 在不同的预期条件下接受了错误知觉任务。检查所有组是否存在幻觉或类似幻觉的经历及其严重程度。研究结果 我们观察到条件对所有群体的主要影响，即认知预期越强，听觉错误感知的比例就越大。然而，听觉错误感知的比例不存在群体效应。尽管幻觉组中存在适度的成对相关性，但线性混合模型中的幻觉和幻觉样体验水平并不能预测听觉错误感知的比率。结论 目前的研究表明，认知预期形式的强先验会影响知觉并在知觉障碍中发挥作用。还有一种初步的可能性是，过度依赖强先验可能与当前产生幻觉的受试者的幻觉有关。详细讨论了可能的、可避免的混杂因素。