Gaudreau G, Monetta L, Macoir J, Poulin S, Laforce R, Hudon C
École de Psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada G1V 0A6 ; Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Québec, QC, Canada G1J 2G3.
Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Québec, QC, Canada G1J 2G3 ; Département de Réadaptation, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada G1V 0A6.
Behav Neurol. 2015;2015:685613. doi: 10.1155/2015/685613. Epub 2015 Jun 25.
The present study examined mentalizing capacities as well as the relative implication of mentalizing in the comprehension of ironic and sincere assertions among 30 older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 30 healthy control (HC) subjects.
Subjects were administered a task evaluating mentalizing by means of short stories. A verbal irony comprehension task, in which participants had to identify ironic or sincere statements within short stories, was also administered; the design of the task allowed uniform implication of mentalizing across the conditions.
Findings indicated that participants with MCI have second-order mentalizing difficulties compared to HC subjects. Moreover, MCI participants were impaired compared to the HC group in identifying ironic or sincere stories, both requiring mental inference capacities.
This study suggests that, in individuals with MCI, difficulties in the comprehension of ironic and sincere assertions are closely related to second-order mentalizing deficits. These findings support previous data suggesting a strong relationship between irony comprehension and mentalizing.
本研究考察了30名患有轻度认知障碍（MCI）的老年人和30名健康对照（HC）受试者的心理理论能力，以及心理理论在理解反讽和真诚断言中的相对作用。
通过短篇故事对受试者进行一项评估心理理论的任务。还进行了一项言语反讽理解任务，参与者必须在短篇故事中识别反讽或真诚的陈述；该任务的设计允许在不同条件下统一运用心理理论。
研究结果表明，与HC受试者相比，MCI参与者存在二阶心理理论困难。此外，与HC组相比，MCI参与者在识别反讽或真诚故事方面存在障碍，这两者都需要心理推理能力。
本研究表明，在MCI个体中，理解反讽和真诚断言的困难与二阶心理理论缺陷密切相关。这些发现支持了先前的数据，表明反讽理解与心理理论之间存在密切关系。
