Developing and testing a new tool to investigate detection of "intention to communicate" in men and women with schizophrenia and mentally healthy controls, using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques

ToMas was a new task I developed to investigate the Theory of Mind ability to detect Intention to Communicate using auditory non-word stimuli, while examining similarities and differences in people with schizophrenia and healthy controls. I was interested in why people with schizophrenia might have referential delusions of communication, and there were no other tests available that answered this research question. First, I conducted three reviews, to identify gaps, source methodologies, and decide on my way forward. I then developed and tested ToMas behaviorally, quantitatively, and using magnetic resonance imaging in an event-related paradigm. I found no group differences in categorization of stimuli, but schizophrenia participants did not show the differential activation that controls showed. However, my results were limited by small sample size and this lack of power hampered my ability to publish results and further replicate.