Background: Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) have been widely used for high-risk population screening in community. However, current knowledge on PLEs is still limited. This study aimed to examine multidimensional psychopathology and function in this population, and to explore the potential biomarkers of PLEs among event-related potential (ERP) indices as well as the associations of ERP indices with multidimensional performances.
Methods: Subclinical symptoms, cognitive and social function, as well as auditory P300 (including P3b and P3a) and mismatch negativity (MMN) ERP were assessed in 46 participants with PLEs and 40 participants without PLEs.
Results: Compared to the control group, PLEs participants scored significantly higher on subclinical depressive, anxiety and manic symptoms, and lower on social cognition (Cohen's d = 0.85, 0.63, 0.51 and 0.68, respectively), but no significant differences in neurocognitive and social function. Among all included ERP indices, generalized estimating equations only suggested group effect at P3a, with shorter latency in the PLEs group compared to the control group (Cohen's d = 0.63). Further hierarchical logistic regression models also revealed that shortened P3a latency was the solely significant ERP index of PLEs state (OR = 0.989, p = .020). Finally, general linear models suggested significant associations between P300 and MMN indices with anxiety, mania, social cognition, and neurocognition in the PLEs group.
Conclusions: PLEs seem to be an undifferentiated state on the continuum of psychosis, characterized by a mix of subthreshold positive and affective symptoms, intact social function and neurocognition, slightly impaired social cognition, and shortened latency of auditory P3a.
Key words: psychotic-like experiences, subclinical affective symptoms, cognitive function, social function, ERP.
Copyright © 2026. Published by Elsevier Ltd.