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Confidence, accuracy judgments and feedback in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: a time series network analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2022

Varsha D. Badal
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, USASam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, USA
Colin A. Depp*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, USASam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, USAVA San Diego Healthcare System, La Jolla, California, USA
Philip D. Harvey
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USAResearch Service, Miami VA Healthcare System, Miami, FL, USA
Robert A. Ackerman
Affiliation:
School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA
Raeanne C. Moore
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, USAVA San Diego Healthcare System, La Jolla, California, USA
Amy E. Pinkham
Affiliation:
School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USADepartment of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Colin A. Depp, E-mail: cdepp@ucsd.edu
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Abstract

Background

Inaccurate self-assessment of performance is common among people with serious mental illness, and it is associated with poor functional outcomes independent from ability. However, the temporal interdependencies between judgments of performance, confidence in accuracy, and feedback about performance are not well understood.

Methods

We evaluated two tasks: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Penn Emotion recognition task (ER40). These tasks were modified to include item-by-item confidence and accuracy judgments, along with feedback on accuracy. We evaluated these tasks as time series and applied network modeling to understand the temporal relationships between momentary confidence, accuracy judgments, and feedback. The sample constituted participants with schizophrenia (SZ; N = 144), bipolar disorder (BD; N = 140), and healthy controls (HC; N = 39).

Results

Network models for both WCST and ER40 revealed denser and lagged connections between confidence and accuracy judgments in SZ and, to a lesser extent in BD, that were not evidenced in HC. However, associations between feedback regarding accuracy with subsequent accuracy judgments and confidence were weaker in SZ and BD. In each of these comparisons, the BD group was intermediate between HC and SZ. In analyses of the WCST, wherein incorporating feedback is crucial for success, higher confidence predicted worse subsequent performance in SZ but not in HC or BD.

Conclusions

While network models are exploratory, the results suggest some potential mechanisms by which challenges in self-assessment may impede performance, perhaps through hyperfocus on self-generated judgments at the expense of incorporation of feedback.

Information

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Table 1.Demographic details of participants and scores on ER40 and WCST tasks

Figure 1

Fig. 1.Network constructed from WCST-IA dataset. Network graphs representing interaction between confidence, accuracy and accuracy judgment for healthy controls (HC), and the two clinical categories [individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD)]. (a) Accuracy feedback strongly influences future confidence and accuracy judgment in HC. As accuracy judgment increases, the responses become tentative, this is specific to WCST task due to shifting criteria for sorting. (b) Among individuals with SZ, over-confidence is associated with future accuracy negatively. (c) BD network displays mostly intermediate characteristics, in between those of HC and SZ. In our figures, positive correlations are represented in green while negative are in red, the depth of color encodes the strength of the association (in blue).

Figure 2

Table 2.Strengths of contemporaneous and time-lagged associations from network analysis for WCST and ER40 tasks (IA dataset)

Figure 3

Fig. 2.Network constructed from ER40-IA dataset: (a) Confidence has the strongest correlation to accuracy in healthy controls (HC). Accuracy has little learning associated with it. (b) Accuracy influenced accuracy judgment negatively among individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders (SZ). (c) Accuracy influenced confidence negatively among individuals with bipolar disorder (BD).

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