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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychopathology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1443145

Validation of Behavioral Measures of Social Cognition in Individuals Diagnosed with Schizophrenia

Provisionally accepted
Noa Rahamim Noa Rahamim 1*Reut Gilad Reut Gilad 2,3Omer Linkovski Omer Linkovski 3,4,5Hagai Bergman Hagai Bergman 1,6Keren Avirame Keren Avirame 2Yasmin A. Foul Yasmin A. Foul 2Renana Eitan Renana Eitan 2,3
  • 1 Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
  • 2 Department of Psychiatry, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • 3 Jerusalem Mental Health Center, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
  • 4 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv District, Israel
  • 5 Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv District, Israel
  • 6 Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Schizophrenia, a complex neuropsychiatric disorder, manifests severe impairments in social cognition, notably in Theory of Mind (ToM), empathy, and emotion recognition, which significantly influence social competence and overall functioning. These aspects are crucial for prognosis in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (SZ). This study validates a comics strip paradigm for ToM and empathy assessment, the Montreal Affective Voices (MAV) for measuring emotion recognition, and a Go-NoGo task for inhibition control estimation in individuals diagnosed with SZ, comparing their performance with healthy controls. SZ participants exhibited diminished abilities in the comics strip task, especially in ToM and empathy conditions, alongside challenges in identifying emotions from vocal cues in MAV. They responded slower and tended to be less accurate in the Go-NoGo task. The validated behavioral battery addresses the limitations of previous measures and emerges as a promising tool for future investigations into the neural systems underlying social cognition in schizophrenia. Such insights can lead to the development of long-needed treatment for negative symptoms and social dysfunctions in schizophrenia.

    Keywords: Schizophrenia, social cognition, theory of mind (ToM), emotion recognition, comic strip, Montreal Affective Voices (MAV), go-nogo

    Received: 03 Jun 2024; Accepted: 28 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Rahamim, Gilad, Linkovski, Bergman, Avirame, Foul and Eitan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Noa Rahamim, Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.