<p>Some years ago I read about the computational modeling of schizophrenia.  (It was probably a summary in a layperson's science publication like <em>Science News</em>.)</p>
<p>As I recall, altering a single variable relating to memory caused a particular type of delusion to arise in the AI patient where, in the recalling of a narrative, characters in the action were substituted with each other, or with the speaker.  In the article, this was referred to as an &quot;agent-slotting error&quot;.</p>
<p>Web searches for &quot;agent-slotting error&quot; only seem to turn up references to the modeling research, so I would like to know:</p>
<ul>
<li>Is this type of error or delusion something that's actually associated with schizophrenia, or is it just considered a model for understanding aspects of delusions in schizophrenia?</li>
<li>If it is something that actually occurs in schizophrenia, what is a term of art for it used generally in psychology rather than specifically in computational models of cognition?</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>Some clarifying examples from the papers:</p>
<p>From <a href="https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/pseries/Peg_files/valton2017.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Comprehensive review: Computational modelling of schizophrenia
Vincent Valtona</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The hyperlearning model could account for derailments from the original
story through a confusion between the characters of different stories
(‘agent-slotting errors’) leading to delusion-like ideas (Grasemann et al.,
2009; Hoffman et al., 2011).</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt31d5h9qq/qt31d5h9qq.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Grasemann et al.</a> actually calls it “agency shifts”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Applied to the story and sentence generator networks, hyperlearning robustly produced stable patterns of “agency shifts” where characters migrated between stories and produced meaningful new narratives.</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-17T20:16:16.260Z
Could you be referring to [source-monitoring error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-monitoring_error#Schizophrenia)?
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-17T20:22:43.423Z
@ArnonWeinberg I don't think it's the same.  I'll update the question to include examples from one of the papers.
Theodore
<cognitive-modeling><schizophrenia>
Term of art for "agent-slotting" delusion?
Theodore
# Term of art for "agent-slotting" delusion?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-09-17)

Some years ago I read about the computational modeling of schizophrenia. (It was probably a summary in a layperson's science publication like *Science News*.)

As I recall, altering a single variable relating to memory caused a particular type of delusion to arise in the AI patient where, in the recalling of a narrative, characters in the action were substituted with each other, or with the speaker. In the article, this was referred to as an "agent-slotting error".

Web searches for "agent-slotting error" only seem to turn up references to the modeling research, so I would like to know:

* Is this type of error or delusion something that's actually associated with schizophrenia, or is it just considered a model for understanding aspects of delusions in schizophrenia?
* If it is something that actually occurs in schizophrenia, what is a term of art for it used generally in psychology rather than specifically in computational models of cognition?

---

Some clarifying examples from the papers:

From [Comprehensive review: Computational modelling of schizophrenia
Vincent Valtona](https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/pseries/Peg_files/valton2017.pdf):

> The hyperlearning model could account for derailments from the original
> story through a confusion between the characters of different stories
> (‘agent-slotting errors’) leading to delusion-like ideas (Grasemann et al.,
> 2009; Hoffman et al., 2011).

[Grasemann et al.](https://escholarship.org/content/qt31d5h9qq/qt31d5h9qq.pdf) actually calls it “agency shifts”:

> Applied to the story and sentence generator networks, hyperlearning robustly produced stable patterns of “agency shifts” where characters migrated between stories and produced meaningful new narratives.

**Tags:** cognitive-modeling, schizophrenia

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Could you be referring to [source-monitoring error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-monitoring_error#Schizophrenia)?  
> **username_0**: @ArnonWeinberg I don't think it's the same.  I'll update the question to include examples from one of the papers.  

---

## 0 answers

