Background: Positive schizotypy is a construct comprised of a subset of symptoms belonging to the broader concept of schizotypy in general. Many of these symptoms are believed to overlap with apophenia, which is the tendency to perceive patterns in the world where none exist, or to commit type 1 errors in the attribution of meaning to information. The relationship between these two concepts with respect to pattern recognition arguably remains unclear. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate how positive schizotypy and apophenia are associated with type 1 error pattern detection. We predicted that individuals who scored higher on measures of positive schizotypy and apophenia would report perceiving more patterns and meaning than individuals that scored lower on these measures. We also explored whether apophenia would mediate the relationship between positive schizotypy and task performance. Method: Participants comprised 96 college students. A computer stimulus involving multiple images of random displays of dots (RDT task) was used to assess this tendency of perceiving patterns and meaning where none in fact are present. Self-report measures were given to assess positive schizotypy and apophenia. Results: As predicted, individuals that scored higher on measures of positive schizotypy also scored higher on measures of apophenia and reported perceiving more meaningful patterns during the experimental task. Apophenia did not mediate this relationship between positive schizotypy and task performance. Conclusions: Individuals exhibiting higher levels of positive schizotypy may be more prone to perceiving patterns and meaning in sense data where none in fact exist than individuals exhibiting lower levels of the construct. This relationship does not appear to be better explained by the concept of apophenia. Future research and the implications of the relationship between positive schizotypy, pattern detection, and related concepts are discussed.
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