scholarly journals S53. DELINEATING SOCIAL COGNITION IN AUTISM AND PSYCHOSIS

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S53-S53
Author(s):  
Tim Ziermans ◽  
Sophie van Rijn ◽  
Hilde Geurts ◽  
Lieuwe De Haan

Abstract Background Impaired social cognition represents a common feature in both the autism and psychosis spectrum, but direct comparisons are sparse and assessments typically restricted to a few tasks with limited ecological validity. The first aim of the present study was to compare the social cognitive profile of young individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or a first episode psychosis (FEP) with a group of typical comparisons (TC) on a comprehensive social cognition test battery. The second aim was to explore the relative contribution of autistic and psychotic traits to social cognitive performance across groups. Methods In total 90 young individuals (M = 21.9 y, SD = 3.1 y, range = 16–30 y, 67% male) were recruited. Groups (31 FEP, 21 ASD, 38 TC) were matched for age and sex. Social cognition assessment included measures for static and dynamic emotion recognition & social inference / Theory of Mind, social attention (eye-tacking), empathy and alexithymia. Autistic and psychotic traits were assessed with self-report questionnaires (AQ-28 & SPQ-br). Results Data collection is completed at the time of abstract submission and analyses are expected to be finalized in February 2020. Discussion Pending the outcome of our analyses, we expect our results will provide a more complete and detailed picture of shared and unique aspects in the social cognitive profile of autism and psychosis. In general we hypothesize that both ASD and FEP, on a group-level, will significantly underperform compared to TC, but that the respective trait dimensions will each explain a unique amount of variance in social cognitive performance.

Women ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 204-211
Author(s):  
Marina Verdaguer-Rodríguez ◽  
Raquel López-Carrilero ◽  
Marta Ferrer-Quintero ◽  
Helena García-Mieres ◽  
Luciana Díaz-Cutraro ◽  
...  

The aim of this study was to explore gender differences in social cognition in a sample of first-episode psychosis (FEP). An observational descriptive study was performed with 191 individuals with FEP. Emotion perception was assessed using the Faces Test, theory of mind was assessed using the Hinting Task, and attributional style was assessed using the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire. No gender differences were found in any of the social cognitive domains. Our results suggest that men and women with FEP achieve similar performances in social cognition. Therefore, targeting specific needs in social cognition regarding gender may not be required in early interventions for psychosis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S160-S161
Author(s):  
Sara-Ann Lee ◽  
Keane Lim ◽  
Max Lam ◽  
Jimmy Lee

Abstract Background Social cognitive deficits are common, detectable across a wide range of tasks and appear to play a key role in influencing poor functioning in schizophrenia. Despite its importance as a treatment target, the factors that underlie social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia remains elusive. Schizotypy appears to be one such factor that can explain the variability in social cognitive deficits seen in schizophrenia. The study’s primary aim was to provide a more comprehensive understanding of social cognitive functioning and its relationship to schizotypy. Methods 108 patients and 70 healthy controls completed nine tasks across 4 social cognitive domains based on the SCOPE study. In addition, all participants completed the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire. Clinical symptoms were also rated using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Results Theory of Mind, social perception, emotion processing and attribution bias were measured in patients with schizophrenia (n = 108) and healthy controls (n = 70). A social cognition composite score was calculated using principal components analysis. Cluster analysis on the derived factor scores revealed 3 clusters. Multiple univariate ANOVAS with Bonferroni correction were used to examine differences between the 3 clusters on each of the 4 social cognition domain scores, which indicated that higher social cognitive performance was related to lower schizotypy. In addition, results indicated that despite differences in the social cognitive performance among patients in the 3 clusters, they did not differ in clinical outcome measures. Discussion The primary aim of the study was to address gaps in the current literature by examining the relationship between social cognition and schizotypy. This study built upon past studies which had the tendency to focus on single, discrete domains by comparing the social cognitive performance of patients and controls using an extensive battery of tests, indexing four social cognitive domains. The significant differences on total SPQ score and the SPQ domain scores between the various clusters, coupled with the significant correlations between schizotypy and social cognition, reinforces the utility of schizotypy in refining our understanding of the variation in the degree of social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. In conclusion, this study substantiates the importance of understanding the relationship between social cognition and schizotypy. This could support and pave the way for the development and implementation of targeted social cognitive interventions catered to the patients’ level of deficit.


2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-144
Author(s):  
Carla Cardoso ◽  
Juliana Fernandes Lomba da Rocha ◽  
Catarina Santana Moreira ◽  
Amanda Luz Pinto

PURPOSE: To investigate the social-cognitive performance of children with diagnostics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), mental disability (MD) and hearing impairment (HI) in two different communicative situations. METHODS: Participated in this study 30 children ages between 3 and 12 years starting speech language therapy processes, divided in three groups: Group 1 - ten children with diagnoses included in the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD); Group 2: ten children diagnosed with mental disabilities (MD) and Group 3: ten children diagnosed with hearing impairment (HI). The subjects were assessed in two different communicative situations (group and individual therapy situation) for 12 months. RESULTS: Data regarding the performance of the three groups in the two situations show that G3 had better absolute performance when compared with other groups, with the variable symbolic play as an important differential criterion for the three groups. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the social-cognitive performance can be used as an auxiliary tool for intervention, helping the identification of variables that could interfere in the communicative performance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace A. Carroll ◽  
V. Tamara Montrose ◽  
Tom Burke

Social cognition is the ability to identify, understand, and interpret mental states and emotions. Psychopathic traits are typically described in two ways; Primary: shallow affect, emotional detachment, and relationship difficulties, and Secondary Psychopathic Traits: antisocial traits, impulsiveness, and emotional dysregulation. People with high psychopathic traits tend to perform lower on measures of social cognition. This study investigated the relationship of social cognition (mentalising) to primary and secondary psychopathic traits in a non-clinical sample, and investigated the psychometric properties of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) Short Forms (A and B). A community-based male sample (N = 1,000; age range 18–78) was recruited through an online platform. Psychopathic traits were measured using Levenson, Kiehl, and Fitzpatrick's Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, and stratified into Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. Secondary validation of the RMET Short Forms was completed investigating scale reliability, and validity. Findings suggest excellent psychometrics in a large community cohort for the RMET Short Forms (A and B), with significant negative correlations on social cognitive performance and high self-report psychopathy. The item valence within the social cognitive measure (positive, negative, and neutral affect stimuli) was also examined, and correlated significantly with both Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. This study provides further validation of the RMET Short Forms (A and B), and adds to the literature on the scale by investigating performance on short-form specific valence. This study further suggests that in a non-clinical community sample of males, that higher psychopathic traits correlated significantly, and negatively, with social cognitive performance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hester Sijtsma ◽  
Nikki C. Lee ◽  
Miriam Hollarek ◽  
Reubs J. Walsh ◽  
Mariët van Buuren ◽  
...  

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and schizophrenia spectrum conditions (SSC) are both characterized by changes in social-cognitive functioning. Less is known about the overlap and the differences in social-cognitive functioning when comparing individuals with subclinical levels of ASC and SSC, while studies in non-clinical samples have the benefit of avoiding confounds that are present in clinical groups. Therefore, we first examined how autistic-like experiences, positive psychotic-like experiences and the co-occurrence of both correlated with the performance on an extensive battery of social cognition tasks in young adolescents. Second, we examined the effect of autistic-like experiences, psychotic-like experiences and their co-occurrence on friendships in daily life. A total of 305 adolescents (Mage = 12.6, sd = 0.4, 147 boys) participated in the current study. A battery of social cognition tasks, comprising the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task, Dot perspective task and trust game were individually administered in a classroom setting, along with a friendship peer nomination questionnaire. Results indicated no evidence for a relationship between the performance on the social cognition battery and subclinical experiences of autism and/or psychosis. However, results did show that the amount of autistic-like experiences of adolescents were associated with being less often selected as a friend by their peers. By contrast, no relationship between self-reported friendships and autistic-like experiences was found. Neither a relationship between friendships and psychotic-like experiences was reported. This study provides initial evidence that information provided by peers may shed light on (altered) social behavior associated with autistic-like experiences that is not apparent on performance measures, as well as elucidate possible differences between autistic- and psychotic-like experiences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Mita Sri Handayani ◽  
Muhammad Nur Wangid ◽  
Andre Julius

The background of the current study is the urgency of possessing good social cognition to adapt to the social changes that are happening quickly. Weak social cognition makes individuals less in empathy, aggressive or unhappy in their daily life. The link between self-management and social cognition lies in cognitive adjustment. Hence, the authors think it is important to do research that focuses on the implementation of counseling with self-management techniques in developing social cognition. The authors aimed to investigate the effectiveness of self-management in improving social cognition. The present study used one group pretest-posttest quasi-experiment. We invited 10 students from Universitas Ma'soem, Indonesia to participate in the experiment. They were selected based on a low social cognition score after filling the self-report of nineteen items social cognition scale. The results showed counseling with self-management techniques effective in improving university students' social cognition. Besides, limitations and recommendations are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Arioli ◽  
Chiara Crespi ◽  
Nicola Canessa

Social cognition refers to a set of processes, ranging from perception to decision-making, underlying the ability to decode others’ intentions and behaviors to plan actions fitting with social and moral, besides individual and economic considerations. Its centrality in everyday life reflects the neural complexity of social processing and the ubiquity of social cognitive deficits in different pathological conditions. Social cognitive processes can be clustered in three domains associated with (a) perceptual processing of social information such as faces and emotional expressions (social perception), (b) grasping others’ cognitive or affective states (social understanding), and (c) planning behaviors taking into consideration others’, in addition to one’s own, goals (social decision-making). We review these domains from the lens of cognitive neuroscience, i.e., in terms of the brain areas mediating the role of such processes in the ability to make sense of others’ behavior and plan socially appropriate actions. The increasing evidence on the “social brain” obtained from healthy young individuals nowadays constitutes the baseline for detecting changes in social cognitive skills associated with physiological aging or pathological conditions. In the latter case, impairments in one or more of the abovementioned domains represent a prominent concern, or even a core facet, of neurological (e.g., acquired brain injury or neurodegenerative diseases), psychiatric (e.g., schizophrenia), and developmental (e.g., autism) disorders. To pave the way for the other papers of this issue, addressing the social cognitive deficits associated with severe acquired brain injury, we will briefly discuss the available evidence on the status of social cognition in normal aging and its breakdown in neurodegenerative disorders. Although the assessment and treatment of such impairments is a relatively novel sector in neurorehabilitation, the evidence summarized here strongly suggests that the development of remediation procedures for social cognitive skills will represent a future field of translational research in clinical neuroscience.


2019 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Hartmann ◽  
Maria R. Urbano ◽  
C. Teal Raffaele ◽  
Nicole L. Kreiser ◽  
Takeshia V. Williams ◽  
...  

Individuals on the autism spectrum experience difficulties in social relationships and emotion regulation. The aim of the present exploratory research study was to develop and explore the effectiveness of a manualized emotion regulation group intervention for autistic adults to improve emotion regulation and social communication. The group participants included seven young adults (age > 18 years) on the autism spectrum. Primary outcome measures were the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2) and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Group participants reported significant improvements on the Social Communication and Interaction subscale (SCI; t = 2.601, p = .041), the Social Awareness (AWR; t = 3.163, p = .019), and the Social Cognition (COG; t = 4.861, p = .003) subscales of the SRS-2: Self Report. Overall, this study provides preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of a group treatment approach that focuses on emotion regulation to improve social interactions for young adults on the autism spectrum.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-436
Author(s):  
Élodie Cauvet ◽  
Annelies van’t Westeinde ◽  
Roberto Toro ◽  
Ralf Kuja-Halkola ◽  
Janina Neufeld ◽  
...  

Abstract A female advantage in social cognition (SoC) might contribute to women’s underrepresentation in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The latter could be underpinned by sex differences in social brain structure. This study investigated the relationship between structural social brain networks and SoC in females and males in relation to ASD and autistic traits in twins. We used a co-twin design in 77 twin pairs (39 female) aged 12.5 to 31.0 years. Twin pairs were discordant or concordant for ASD or autistic traits, discordant or concordant for other neurodevelopmental disorders or concordant for neurotypical development. They underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging and were assessed for SoC using the naturalistic Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition. Autistic traits predicted reduced SoC capacities predominantly in male twins, despite a comparable extent of autistic traits in each sex, although the association between SoC and autistic traits did not differ significantly between the sexes. Consistently, within-pair associations between SoC and social brain structure revealed that lower SoC ability was associated with increased cortical thickness of several brain regions, particularly in males. Our findings confirm the notion that sex differences in SoC in association with ASD are underpinned by sex differences in brain structure.


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