Revisiting the validity of measures of social cognitive bias in schizophrenia: Additional results from the Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) study

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.

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Social Cognition through the Lens of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience

BioMed Research International ◽

10.1155/2018/4283427 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2018 ◽

pp. 1-18 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Maria Arioli ◽

Chiara Crespi ◽

Nicola Canessa

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Social Cognition ◽

Cognitive Deficits ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Acquired Brain Injury ◽

Clinical Neuroscience ◽

Pathological Conditions ◽

The Social ◽

Social Cognitive Deficits

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.

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The EVACO Project: A new battery for assessing social cognition disorders and related psychiatric disability in schizophrenia

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.022 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (S1) ◽

pp. S78-S78 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P. Roux ◽

M. Urbach ◽

S. Fonteneau ◽

B. Aouizerate ◽

F. Berna ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Functional Disability ◽

Cognitive Disorders ◽

Psychometric Evaluation ◽

Functional Expression ◽

Cognitive Neuropsychology ◽

Alternative Approach ◽

Competing Interest

The relation of social cognitive disorders and schizophrenic symptoms are well-established. Yet, assessment methods have not reached a consensus. In addition, causal paths between neurocognition, social cognition, symptoms and functional expression are not clearly understood. During the past few years, some authoritative accounts proposed specialized batteries of tests and emphasized theory of mind, emotion recognition, and interpretation bias constructs:– NIMH's “Social cognition psychometric evaluation” battery (Pinkham AE, Penn DL, Green MF, Harvey PD. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2015);– “Social cognition and functioning in schizophrenia” (Green MF, Lee J, Ochsner KN. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2013).Interestingly, these accounts stemming either from expert consensus and psychometric considerations or from neuroscience knowledge recognized some difficulties in providing a fully usable set of instruments. The project described here (EVACO protocol, funded by the Programme Hospitalier de Recherche Clinique national) follows an alternative approach and aims at providing a psychometrically validated battery. Based on a cognitive neuropsychology view on schizophrenic functional disability, several tests were gathered and are assessed in a 12-months multi-center follow-up of 160 individuals with schizophrenia. The FondaMental foundation network of Expert Centers is involved in recruiting patients from eight centers (Clermont-Ferrand, Colombes, Créteil, Grenoble, Marseille, Montpellier, Strasbourg, Versailles). To-date, the first evaluation of the population has been achieved. Experience reports and inclusions follow-up demonstrate the good acceptability of this battery both on the patients and the evaluator's side. We emphasize the usefulness of this project to meet the clinicians’ needs of validated social cognition tools, by describing different scenarios of use.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

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Social Cognition in Personality Disorders

10.1093/med/9780199362318.003.0009 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Stefanie Lis ◽

Nicole E. Derish ◽

M. Mercedes Perez-Rodriguez

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Personality Disorder ◽

Personality Disorders ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Schizotypal Personality ◽

The Social ◽

Social Cognitive Processing ◽

Interpersonal Dysfunction ◽

Significant Disability

Changes in social cognition are increasingly recognized as core illness features in the personality disorders with a broad impact on social functioning. Despite the significant disability caused by social cognitive dysfunction, treatments for this symptom dimension tailored to the specific deficits of a disorder are still missing. This chapter characterizes the different domains of social cognitive processing and describes different approaches and instruments for measuring impairments. It provides a short overview of the evidence demonstrating changes in social cognition in schizotypal personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and antisocial and avoidant personality disorder, as well as the neurobiology of social cognition. During the recent past the number of studies addressing this topic increased tremendously. Nevertheless, research in this area is still young and requires approaches that study these functions while emphasizing the social context and associate deficits observed in experimental paradigms with interpersonal dysfunction during every-day life.

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M67. UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL COGNITION IN SCHIZOPHRENIA THROUGH THE LENS OF SCHIZOTYPY

Schizophrenia Bulletin ◽

10.1093/schbul/sbaa030.379 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S160-S161

Author(s):

Sara-Ann Lee ◽

Keane Lim ◽

Max Lam ◽

Jimmy Lee

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Cognitive Performance ◽

Cognitive Deficits ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Cognitive Domains ◽

The Social ◽

Social Cognitive Deficits ◽

The Relationship ◽

Domain Scores

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.

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Social functioning and social cognition in bipolar disorder: Is there a connection?

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.1175 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (S1) ◽

pp. S336-S336

Author(s):

V. Maria Iulia ◽

R.C. Delphine ◽

H. Audrey ◽

K. Arthur

Keyword(s):

Bipolar Disorder ◽

Social Cognition ◽

Social Functioning ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Situational Factors ◽

Global Functioning ◽

Literature Searches ◽

The Social ◽

Competing Interest ◽

Bipolar Patients

IntroductionThe research interest in social cognition in bipolar disorder has increased in a significant way in the last decade showing major impairments, especially in mental state reasoning, even during euthymia (Samamé et al., 2012; Samamé et al., 2015). Social cognitive processes in humans describe the ways individuals draw inferences about other people's beliefs and the ways they weigh social situational factors in making these inferences (Green et al., 2008). A causal relationship between social cognition deficits and global functioning has been already established in schizophrenic populations (Green et al., 2015). But there is still little information regarding the relation between social cognition and social functioning in bipolar disorder.AimsTo review the relationship between general/social functioning and social cognitive impairments in bipolar patients.MethodsA systematic review of literature was conducted. Relevant articles were identified through literature searches in PubMed/Medline, EBSCOHost and Google Scholar databases dating from 2000 to 2015 using the keywords “bipolar”, “social cognition”, “theory of mind”, “mentalizing”, “emotion recognition”, “emotion processing”, “functioning” and “quality of life”.ResultsThe findings of the review will be discussed, regarding the specificity of the thymic state of the patients and the social cognition instruments used.ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, the present review is the first to explore specifically the relation between the social cognition deficits and the general/social functioning of bipolar patients. This exploration is of interest for a better comprehension of this disorder to improve the outcome of the patients.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

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Paranoid Cognition in Social Systems: Thinking and Acting in the Shadow of Doubt

Personality and Social Psychology Review ◽

10.1207/s15327957pspr0204_3 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 2 (4) ◽

pp. 251-275 ◽

Cited By ~ 140

Author(s):

Roderick M. Kramer

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Social Organization ◽

Systems Thinking ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Social Dynamics ◽

Social Systems ◽

Psychological Theory ◽

The Social ◽

New Framework

Distrust and suspicion are common and recurring problems at all levels of social organization, ranging from the interpersonal to the collective. Unfortunately, our understanding of the origins and dynamics of such distrust and suspicion remains far from complete. A primary aim of this research, accordingly, was to articulate a new framework for conceptualizing a form of exaggerated distrust and suspicion termed paranoid social cognition. Drawing on recent psychological theory and research, this framework identifies the social cognitive underpinnings of paranoid cognitions. It also specifies some of the situational determinants of such cognition and elaborates on the psychological, behavioral, and social dynamics that sustain them.

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The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation Study: Results of the Expert Survey and RAND Panel

Schizophrenia Bulletin ◽

10.1093/schbul/sbt081 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 40 (4) ◽

pp. 813-823 ◽

Cited By ~ 206

Author(s):

Amy E. Pinkham ◽

David L. Penn ◽

Michael F. Green ◽

Benjamin Buck ◽

Kristin Healey ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Psychometric Evaluation ◽

Evaluation Study ◽

Expert Survey ◽

The Social ◽

Study Results

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Social cognitive impairment and autism: what are we trying to explain?

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2015.0082 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 371 (1686) ◽

pp. 20150082 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Susan Leekam

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Social Cognition ◽

Sensory Processing ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Attention Allocation ◽

Domain Specific ◽

Psychological Theories ◽

The Social ◽

Psychological Impairment ◽

Social Cognitive Theories

Early psychological theories of autism explained the clinical features of this condition in terms of perceptual and sensory processing impairments. The arrival of domain-specific social cognitive theories changed this focus, postulating a ‘primary’ and specific psychological impairment of social cognition. Across the years, evidence has been growing in support of social cognitive and social attention explanations in autism. However, there has also been evidence for general non-social cognitive impairments in representational understanding, attention allocation and sensory processing. Here, I review recent findings and consider the case for the specificity and primacy of the social cognitive impairment, proposing that we should focus more explicitly on clinically valid features for insights on the integration of ‘social’ and ‘non-social’ cognition.

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Incubation environment impacts the social cognition of adult lizards

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.170742 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (11) ◽

pp. 170742 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Harry Siviter ◽

D. Charles Deeming ◽

M. F. T. van Giezen ◽

Anna Wilkinson

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Social Learning ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Incubation Temperature ◽

Gaze Following ◽

Brain Anatomy ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Egg Incubation ◽

The Social

Recent work exploring the relationship between early environmental conditions and cognition has shown that incubation environment can influence both brain anatomy and performance in simple operant tasks in young lizards. It is currently unknown how it impacts other, potentially more sophisticated, cognitive processes. Social-cognitive abilities, such as gaze following and social learning, are thought to be highly adaptive as they provide a short-cut to acquiring new information. Here, we investigated whether egg incubation temperature influenced two aspects of social cognition, gaze following and social learning in adult reptiles ( Pogona vitticeps ). Incubation temperature did not influence the gaze following ability of the bearded dragons; however, lizards incubated at colder temperatures were quicker at learning a social task and faster at completing that task. These results are the first to show that egg incubation temperature influences the social cognitive abilities of an oviparous reptile species and that it does so differentially depending on the task. Further, the results show that the effect of incubation environment was not ephemeral but lasted long into adulthood. It could thus have potential long-term effects on fitness.

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