Social cognition scale (SCS): A newly developed assessment instrument

Abstract

There is general consensus that social cognition is a key cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. At the same time, the hypothesis that social cognition is an aspect of cognition that determines social functioning has been receiving more and more empirical support since it was first proposed a few years ago.

However, the actual definition of “social cognition” can be a confounding factor in this framework. The definition has been a matter of debate in literature and only recently has some consensus emerged about the aspects that constitute “social cognition” (emotion perception, theory of mind, social perception, attributional style, social scheme). As a consequence, most of the time research in this area only considers some of these aspects, probably because the instruments available to measure social cognition measure these aspects individually and not social cognition globally.

The SCS (social cognition scale) is an instrument under development with the goal of measuring together some of the components of social cognition, specifically: identification of stimuli, emotion perception, and social perception. Results show that the social perception of the patients who participated in the social perception program has improved. Patients that have received training in social perception learn to gather more information from an image, and to make more adequate interpretations.