Verbal self-monitoring in individuals with schizotypal personality traits: An exploratory ERP study

•Examine verbal self-monitoring in individuals with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) traits using ERP.•Individuals with SPD showed similar error-related negativity amplitude but significantly larger error positivity amplitude.•Verbal error detection may be intact in individuals with SPD but they may have a greater emotional evaluation of errors.

IntroductionIndividuals with schizophrenia have deficits in verbal self-monitoring. This study aimed to assess whether individuals vulnerable to develop schizophrenia show similar difficulties.MethodsFifteen individuals with schizotypal personality traits and 15 healthy controls participated. All participants underwent an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm using a phoneme monitoring Go/No-Go task.ResultsBehavioural results showed that there was no significant difference between individuals with schizotypal personality traits and controls in post-error slowing, but schizotypal individuals had a significantly lower degree of error awareness and higher error rate. In the ERP data, when compared with controls, individuals with schizotypal personality traits showed similar error-related negativity (ERN) amplitude but significantly larger error positivity (Pe) amplitude.ConclusionsResults of this study suggest that verbal error detection may be intact in individuals with schizotypal personality traits. However, it seems that this vulnerable population may have a greater emotional evaluation of errors.