Beliefs are beliefs about reality that we accept as true. They provide us with the basic mental scaffolding to understand and meaningfully engage with our world. Beliefs remain fundamental to our behavior and identity, but they are not well understood.

Delusions, on the other hand, are fixed beliefs, usually false, that are strongly held but not widely held. impart. In previous WORKwe proposed that the study of delusions offers unique insights into the cognitive nature of belief and its dysfunction.

Based on evidence from illusions and other psychological disciplines, I have offered an attempt five-stage cognitive model formation of beliefs.

When faced with unexpected sensory input or social communication, we seek to make sense of it based on existing beliefs, memories, and other social information. We then evaluate our account in terms of how well it explains our experiences and how consistent it is with our prior beliefs. If it passes these criteria, the belief is accepted. It then guides what we pay attention to and what other ideas we can consider.

We propose that illusions may occur at different stages of this exemplary. Our approach highlights the importance of the individual’s search for meaning and social context in the formation of illusions. It also draws attention to the impact of an illusion, once formed, on subsequent perceptions and thinking.

This model linking delusions and beliefs differs from previous accounts that suggested that delusions were different from faith or occur as a largely passive response to abnormal sensory ENTRY like a hallucination. Previous research, for example, found that some people who believed that family members had been replaced by imposters (known as the Capgras delusion) had deficits in familiar processing faceswho could have generated this idea.

Based on this, some have suggested that other delusions occur in a similar way, but in combination with an as yet undiscovered deficit in the cognitive process of evaluation. our faith.

But these accounts did not fully consider other contributing factors, such as the individual’s prior beliefs, social context, and personal attempts to explain their experiences.

Informative case study

The study of illusions was informed by informative selects case studied. Unlike large cohort studies, case studies allow researchers a more detailed exploration of the origins and course of clinical features that are not explained by current theories.

We recently published a paper in the international journal Cortex, which describes a unique case study of a woman who temporarily experienced convincing delusions during a brief hospital stay for postpartum psychosiswhich can give rise to hallucinations, delusions, mood swings and confusion. This is a rare complication of pregnancy, affecting around 1-2 in 1,000 womanthought to be due to hormonal or immunological changes factor.

Natalie (a pseudonym) had no medical or psychiatric history. She developed postpartum psychosis while in the hospital after the birth of her second child.

As part of her condition, Natalie reported several delusions, including the belief that strangers were her in-laws in disguise (known as the Fregoli delusion). Natalie recovered quickly with treatment. The combination of interviews and observations while she experienced the delusions and her subsequent retrospective account provided a unique window into the onset and experience of her delusions.

After a full recovery, Natalie confirmed that she considered her delusions to be strong beliefs. She likened them to the belief that her husband was her husband. This is contrary to some views that suggested that delusions are different from normal beliefs.

Natalie was able to identify the specific traits that contributed to her delusions. Where she believed the strangers to be her in-laws, Natalie identified mannerisms, behaviors and speech patterns of the strangers that reminded her of her in-laws. This suggested that delirium may have arisen from inappropriate activation of memory representations of familiar people based on these cues and other factors.

Natalie also recalled other beliefs, including that she was dead (known as the Cotard delusion), which she did not share with clinicians at the time. She noted that she entertained this idea due to the failure of other explanations to account for her strange experiences and an idea from a television show.

Natalie said she eventually dismissed this idea as implausible, although she still harbors other delusional ideas. This suggests that belief assessment may involve different thresholds for different illusions. It also highlights the private nature of some illusions.

In all of her delusions, Natalie described her active involvement in trying to explain and manage her experiences. She reported that she considered different explanations and tested them by seeking additional information. For example, she asked questions of people she thought were her in-laws. This suggests a surprisingly similar approach to how we typically form beliefs.

Natalie recalled the influence of television and movies on her ideas. She also recalled how she elaborated her illusions, once formed, on the information around her.

These features challenge theories that illusions arise simply from abnormal sensory data. They highlight instead the role of the individual’s search for meaning and social context, as well as the subsequent impact of illusions on perception and thought.

Implications

As a case study, Natalie’s experiences are not necessarily representative of all people who experience postpartum delusions or psychosis. However, Natalia’s case presents informative features that theories of illusion must take into account.

In particular, Natalie’s personalized insights highlight the critical role of the individual in actively seeking to understand and make sense of their experiences. This is opposed to merely passive acceptance of beliefs in response to abnormal sensory data or neuropsychological deficits. This suggests that psychological therapies may be useful in treating psychosis, in combination with other treatments, in some cases.

More generally, Natalie’s account reveals commonalities between delusions and habitual beliefs and supports the view that delusions can be understood in terms of cognitive processes along the stages of normal belief formation. that us identified.

Although challenges remain in investigating delusions, further studies may provide insights into the foundations of everyday belief, and in turn, into ourselves.