Schizotypy.

Here is a very long overdue blog!

Last weeks research colloquium was cancelled so I'll just talk about the one before it on here, which was about Schizotypy and Flexible Learning; looking into whether having a particular level or type of schizotypy could actually be a positive thing.

To begin with I should probably explain that there are 3 main dimensions of schizotypy; positive, negative and cognitive disorganisation, and you can exhibit schizotypal behaviour without being schizophrenic.

The hypothesis of this study was that healthy positive schizotypals would be better at rehearsal learning that negative ones. Participants did a test devised by Raine to determine schizotypy scores and those with very high +ve and low -ve, or low +ve and high -ve were selected, along with some average for a control group.

They were then giving a gambling task to do where they got to keep their winnings. One pile to chose from was low risk, low reward and one was high risk, high reward, it was better to go with the low pile as you always got more money this way and all participants were able to do this. The two piles were then reversed 4 times during the next test, and the participants had to continually relearn which pile to draw from for success (reversal learning). Again all the participants succeeded in doing this, but the high -ve and control group showed very similar results whereas the high +ve participants had much larger successes, showing that flexible learning is increased in those with a high level of positive schizotypy.

In other news I got another A+ in my weekly test. Don't know how much longer this will continue for though as I found today's one very hard!!