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3. Schizophrenia: A Broken Hermeneutic Cycle 87

3. SCHIZOPHRENIA: A BROKEN HERMENEUTIC CYCLE
3.1 HERMENEUTICS, COGNITIVE SCIENCE, SCHIZOPHRENIA
Gallagher’s analysis implies: (1) Hermeneutics and cognitive science is in
agreement on a number of things. An example is the way we know objects.
The interpretation of objects needs “schema theory” given by Michael Arbib [39];
(2) Hermeneutics can contribute to cognitive science. The basis of the argument
is that understanding situations needs hermeneutic interpretation. The usual critique
is that logic, rule-based algorithms, and other similar computational methods are too
rigid to interpret ill-defined situations, but hermeneutics “the art of interpretation”
can do it. (”Mental models,” which also help to analyze situations also should
have been mentioned. Mental models have played a fundamental role in thinking
and reasoning, and were proposed in a revolutionary suggestion by Kenneth Craik
(191445) [40]. The idea that people rely on mental models can be traced back to
Craik’s suggestion that the mind constructs “small-scale models” of reality that it
uses to predict events.) (3) Cognitive science also has something to offer to herme-
neutics, particularly to understand other minds. The most popular notion today is the
theory of mind or more precisely “theory of other’s minds.” The most effective
method of cognitive science to understand other minds, that is, to show empathy
is to simulate other minds by using analogical thinking [41]. The neural basis of
theory of mind now seems to be related to mirror neurons, which is the key structure
of imitation, and possibly language evolution [42]. For a possible mechanism for
internal interpretation through action, see Ref. [43]. A failure of attributing self-
generated action generated by the patient himself (what we may label as the lack
of ability to close the hermeneutic circle) can be a characteristic of schizophrenic
patients [44].
Independently from our interest in hermeneutics we have started to work on com-
bined behavioral, brain imaging, and computational approaches to associative
learning in healthy and schizophrenia patients to explain their normal and reduced
performance. The working hypothesis we adopt is that schizophrenia is a “discon-
nection syndrome,” as was suggested among others by Friston and Frith [45] and
our aim is to qualitatively and quantitatively understand the functional bases of these
disconnections. Schizophrenia and connectivity research are historically related,
see Fig. 4.3.
Rethinking these studies from the perspective of the hermeneutic approach
together with the preliminary results of our combined experimental and computa-
tional studies [47,48] leads us to believe that the hermeneutic circle necessary for
associative learning is broken in schizophrenic patients. Specifically, significant
impairments in the prefronto-hippocampal and hippocampal-inferior temporal
pathways have been found. These findings imply that the lack of cognitive control
over the processes of associative learning may underlie the decreased performance
of schizophrenia patients in related tasks. Therapeutic strategies should act to repair
this circle. For details [49e51]