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Development of the Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test - Theory of Mind (BASIT-ToM) in healthy adults.

ABSTRACT: Impairments of Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities occur in a wide range of brain disorders. Therefore, reliable and ecologically valid examination of these abilities is a crucial part of any comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. An established and ecologically valid, English-language test identifying deficits in ToM abilities is "The Awareness of Social Inference Test - Social Inference Minimal (TASIT-SIM)". However, no comparable German-language ToM test currently exists. In this study, we aimed to develop the first German-language adaption of TASIT-SIM in healthy adults. We selected 13 scenes [four scenes per message type (i.e., honesty, simple sarcasm, paradoxical sarcasm) and one practice scene] out of the 30 TASIT-SIM scenes. In collaboration with a film institute, we filmed each scene at three different intensities. These intensity version scenes were then administered to 240 healthy adults, equally distributed in sex and age, ranging from 35 to 92 years. By applying Rasch analysis, we selected intensity versions that showed neither floor nor ceiling effects in the majority of ToM questions in participants whose ToM abilities were in the medium range. In conclusion, we have developed the first German-language adaption of TASIT-SIM, i.e., the "Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test - Theory of Mind (BASIT-ToM)". The BASIT-ToM incorporates the strengths of TASIT-SIM, while overcoming its limitations such as inconsistencies in cinematic realization and ceiling effects in healthy participants. Next, the BASIT-ToM needs to be validated in healthy people and clinical populations.

SUBMITTER: Jarsch M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10947008 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Development of the Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test - Theory of Mind (BASIT-ToM) in healthy adults.

Jarsch Marianne M Piguet Olivier O Berres Manfred M Sluka Constantin C Semenkova Anna A Kressig Reto W RW Monsch Andreas U AU McDonald Skye S Sollberger Marc M

Journal of neuropsychology 20220921 1

Impairments of Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities occur in a wide range of brain disorders. Therefore, reliable and ecologically valid examination of these abilities is a crucial part of any comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. An established and ecologically valid, English-language test identifying deficits in ToM abilities is "The Awareness of Social Inference Test - Social Inference Minimal (TASIT-SIM)". However, no comparable German-language ToM test currently exists. In this study, we a ...[more]

PMID: 36129703

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Project description:Theory of Mind (ToM) may be defined as the ability to understand the mental states, such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions, of others. Impairment of ToM ability leads to disorders with pathologies in social skills, such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. In addition to differences in ToM ability among patient populations, there is variation between neurotypical individuals. Unfortunately, ToM tasks are usually developed for children or patients with cognitive disorders and cannot detect variations in healthy adults. As an alternative tool, humor may be used. Humor plays a role in social communication and requires many different cognitive functions. Humor is believed to represent complex high-order cognitive processes. There are numerous types of humor; the most complex type is considered ToM humor, where an understanding of social/emotional content is necessary. Given the need for a ToM assessment test suitable for healthy adult populations, we developed a test for measuring humor comprehension and appreciation, with and without ToM content (ToM-HCAT). The present ToM-HCAT test is a performance test consisting of cartoons. The test measures perceived funniness, reaction time to perceived funniness decision, and meaning inference. Cartoons were selected after pilot studies involving 44 participants. Subscales were constituted according to expert views and confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis (N = 135). Goodness of fit values for the final 35-item test were acceptable to excellent: GFI = 0.97; AGFI = 0.97; NFI = 0.97; RFI = 0.97, and SRMR = 0.067. Both categories were internally consistent (α1 = 0.84, α2 = 0.94). External validity was assessed against autistic traits. One hundred and three participants completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient and were grouped by +0.5 standard deviations from the mean as high in autistic traits. The meaning-inference scores of the subscale with the ToM cartoons were significantly lower (p = 0.034) for the high autistic traits group, providing evidence of external validity. In conclusion, we developed and validated a test for assessment of ToM by humor comprehension and appreciation. We believe that the present test will be useful for the detection of variations in ToM ability in the healthy adult population.

Project description:Current measures of social cognition have shown inconsistent findings regarding the effects of healthy aging. Moreover, no tests are currently available that allow clinicians and researchers to examine cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM) and understanding of social norms within the same test. To address these limitations, we present the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT) which assesses cognitive and affective ToM and inter- and intrapersonal understanding of social norms. We examined the effects of age, measures of intelligence and the Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP) on the ESCoT and established tests of social cognition. Additionally, we investigated the convergent validity of the ESCoT based on traditional social cognition measures. The ESCoT was administered alongside Reading the Mind in Films (RMF), Reading the Mind in Eyes (RME), Judgement of Preference and Social Norm Questionnaire to 91 participants (30 aged 18-35 years, 30 aged 45-60 years and 31 aged 65-85 years). Poorer performance on the cognitive and affective ToM ESCoT subtests were predicted by increasing age. The affective ToM ESCoT subtest and RMF were predicted by gender, where being female predicted better performance. Unlike the ESCoT, better performance on the RMF was predicted by higher verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning abilities, while better performance on the RME was predicted by higher verbal comprehension scores. Lower scores on inter-and intrapersonal understanding of social norms were both predicted by the presence of more autism-like traits while poorer interpersonal understanding of social norms performance was predicted by increasing age. These findings show that the ESCoT is a useful measure of social cognition and, unlike established tests of social cognition, performance is not predicted by measures of verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning. This is particularly valuable to obtain an accurate assessment of the influence of age on our social cognitive abilities.

Dataset Information

Development of the Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test - Theory of Mind (BASIT-ToM) in healthy adults.

Publications

Development of the Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test - Theory of Mind (BASIT-ToM) in healthy adults.

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