Aberrant salience predicts psychotic-like experiences in daily life: An experience sampling study

Publication Title

Schizophrenia Research

ISSN

09209964

E-ISSN

43983

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Individuals at risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders tend to make atypical attributions of significance to unimportant stimuli. This experience of heightened significance, known as aberrant salience, is thought to contribute to psychotic symptoms. The Aberrant Salience Inventory (ASI) was designed to capture subclinical and clinical manifestations of the construct, and scores on the scale are associated with schizophrenia-like symptoms and behaviors in laboratory studies. Experience sampling methodology (ESM) studies have assessed momentary experiences of aberrant salience in daily life, but to our knowledge no study has examined real-world outcomes using the ASI as a trait measure of aberrant salience. The current study assessed the expression of aberrant salience in undergraduates oversampled for positive and negative schizotypy using ESM. Overall, findings of the expression of aberrant salience in daily life were similar to previous findings with positive schizotypy. Aberrant salience was associated with psychotic-like and disorganized symptoms, suspiciousness, and social impairment in daily life. It was unassociated with negative symptoms, stress, or affect in the moment. Aberrant salience did not moderate daily life associations of stress with schizotypic symptoms. The ASI subscales showed differential patterns of associations in daily life. These findings support the construct validity of the ASI and suggest that aberrant salience traits are relevant for real-world outcomes in schizotypy-spectrum psychopathology.

First Page

218

Last Page

224

Publication Date

6-1-2020

DOI

10.1016/j.schres.2020.03.016

PubMed ID

32249121

Keywords

Aberrant salience, Ambulatory assessment, Experience sampling, Psychotic-like experiences, Schizotypy

Department

Department of Psychology

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS