Paranoia is a dimension of clinical and subclinical experiences in which others are believed to have harmful intentions. Mild paranoid concerns are relatively common in the general population, and more clinically severe paranoia shares features with social anxiety and is a key characteristic of schizotypy. Given that subclinical manifestations of schizotypy and paranoia may predict the occurren...

I analyzed the Pynchon Gate Protocol, a pseudonymous mail reply handling protocol introduced by Sassaman, Coen, and Mathewson, and in particular BitTorrent’s suitability for it’s purpose within that protocol. After an unfulfilling attempt at using PRISM, I wrote a BitTorrent simulator and used that to verify the feasibility of an attack delaying the distribution of the mail and possibly removin...

Gimmick! written by Joost Zwagerman is a postmodern artist’s novel. The protagonist Walter van Raamsdonk, in short called Raam, visual artist, just like his friends Groen and Eckhardt. This article analyzes the novel as phenomenon centered on art. Because arts can be characterized postmodern, it investigated which characteristics of post­modern found both disciplines. To what extent does reflec...

Studies revealed that patients with paranoid schizophrenia display overconfidence in errors for memory and social cognition tasks. The present investigation examined whether this pattern holds true for visual perception tasks. Nonclinical participants were recruited via an online panel. Individuals were asked to complete a questionnaire that included the Paranoia Checklist and were then present...

A key problem in studying a hypothesized spectrum of severity of delusional ideation is determining that ideas are unfounded. The first objective was to use virtual reality to validate groups of individuals with low, moderate, and high levels of unfounded persecutory ideation. The second objective was to investigate, drawing upon a cognitive model of persecutory delusions, whether clinical and ...

INTRODUCTION This study reports on the development of a new measure of hostile social-cognitive biases for use in paranoia research, the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ). The AIHQ is comprised of a variety of negative situations that differ in terms of intentionality. Items were developed to reflect causes that were ambiguous, intentional, and accidental in nature. METHODS ...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Cognitive models of paranoia incorporate many of the processes implicated in the maintenance of anxiety disorders. Despite this, the role of mental imagery in paranoia remains under-researched. The current study examined the impact of a self-imagery manipulation in people with high non-clinical paranoia. METHODS We used a mixed design with one between-subjects variable...

john gardner’s grendel is a celebrated example of the ontological postmodernist fiction. along with a discovery of self with which grendel the narrator of the novel is concerned, grand narratives such as philosophy are questioned. grendel denies the external objective reality and generously allows the legitimacy of fantastic and non-realistic methods by using “life-affirming fabulous art” as it...

objective(s) calcium-channel blockers have an important role in the treatment of several cardiovascular disorders. derivatives of 1, 4-dihydropyridine are one of the most potent calcium antagonists. in this study four novel ', 4-dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers were synthesized and their hypotensive properties were investigated in male rats. materials and methods four 1, 4-dihydrop...

Presentation of social situations via immersive virtual reality (VR) has the potential to be an ecologically valid way of assessing psychiatric symptoms. In this study we assess the occurrence of paranoid thinking and of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in response to a single neutral VR social environment as predictors of later psychiatric symptoms assessed by standard methods....