Developing a test to assess social cognition based on a real interaction

Abstract

Introduction

Social cognition enables the processing of social information and is needed to adapt one's behaviour to the perceived social scene. Its assessment is a very controversial issue, tests currently available often use unhelpful stimuli from the ecological point of view.

Aims

To develop a test based on genuine social stimuli–not on their representations–and to do so, a controlled social situation is created in which participants can be evaluated on their abilities to perceive and process such information.

Method

A script was prepared, consisting of several interactions which are staged before the participants by two members of the research team. The sample comprises 50 subjects, being on average 22 years old (56% women), who took this test, the MSCEIT and the MASC.

Results

The application showed no incidence, no one detected that it was a previously prepared situation and they were not upset when this fact was revealed. A final selection of 18 items obtained a reliability of 0.701. Multidimensional scaling, partly showed the subdomains taken into account. The correlation matrix confirms the validity of the instrument. (r = 0,465 alpha < 0,001 with MASC. r = 0,106 alpha > 0,05 with MSCEIT).

Conclusions

The instrument is applicable and tolerated by participants being evaluated with it. It is feasible to use it as a test to assess social cognition It is mid-high reliability allows its use for research purposes. The correlation matrix confirmed validity, showing a significant and moderate connection with MASC and no association with any of the scales of MSCEIT.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.