The Influence of Trial-By-Trial Feedback on Trust in Health, First-Episode and Chronic Psychosis

Imke L.J. Lemmers-Jansen*, Rune J. Wichmann, Sophie Perizonius, Sukhi S. Shergill

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Trust is crucial to establishing reciprocal, positive social interactions and seems to be compromised in psychosis. The trust game offers methods to assess an individual’s trust responses to trust-reciprocating, positive feedback. Various computational techniques have been implemented to measure trust responsiveness, mostly based on investments. Here, we propose a new method, focusing on feedback response. Psychosis patients show social dysfunction and reduced trust during early and more progressed illness stages. The present study inspects differences in feedback responsiveness of 102 first-episode psychosis patients (FEPs), 43 chronic psychosis patients (CPs), and 39 healthy controls (HCs) by adopting a novel assessment approach. Additionally, baseline trust, the trust exerted without any prior knowledge of the partner’s trustworthiness, and mean trust were examined. Participants performed a multi-round trust game, playing the investor role, and were paired with a computer, programmed to return at least the invested amount, representing a trustworthy partner. The new method detected group differences, more distinguished than the former methods. Contrary to our expectations, baseline trust was intact in patients. Relative to HCs, patients were less responsive to feedback, failing to integrate the positive information into their decision-making process. The magnitude of returns was not associated with increases in trust. This novel method showed promising results and confirmed patients’ deficits within the social interactional domain.

Original languageEnglish
Article number59
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalGames
Volume13
Issue number5
Early online date31 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by a Consolidator Grant [European Research Council] grant number 311686 awarded to SS.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.

Funding

This research was funded by a Consolidator Grant [European Research Council] grant number 311686 awarded to SS.

FundersFunder number
Seventh Framework Programme311686
European Research Council

    Keywords

    • baseline trust
    • chronic psychosis
    • feedback responsiveness
    • first-episode psychosis
    • novel technique
    • psychotic symptoms
    • reward magnitude
    • trust game

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