Baksh R Asaad, Abrahams Sharon, Bertlich Maya, Cameron Rebecca, Jany Sharon, Dorrian Terin, Baron-Cohen Simon, Allison Carrie, Smith Paula, MacPherson Sarah E, Auyeung Bonnie
Centre for Dementia Prevention, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Human Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Clin Neuropsychol. 2021 Oct;35(7):1275-1293. doi: 10.1080/13854046.2020.1737236. Epub 2020 Mar 19.
Many existing tests of social cognition are not appropriate for clinical use, due to their length, complexity or uncertainty in what they are assessing. The Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT) is a new test of social cognition that assesses affective and cognitive Theory of Mind as well as inter- and intrapersonal understanding of social norms using animated interactions.
To support the development of the ESCoT as a clinical tool, we derived cut-off scores from a neurotypical population ( = 236) and sought to validate the ESCoT in a sample of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; = 19) adults and neurotypical controls (NC; 38) matched on age and education. The ESCoT was administered alongside established tests and questionnaire measures of ASD, empathy, systemizing traits and intelligence.
Performance on the subtests of the ESCoT and ESCoT total scores correlated with performance on traditional tests, demonstrating convergent validity. ASD adults performed poorer on all measures of social cognition. Unlike the ESCoT, performance on the established tests was predicted by verbal comprehension abilities. Using a ROC curve analysis, we showed that the ESCoT was more effective than existing tests at differentiating ASD adults from NC. Furthermore, a total of 42.11% of ASD adults were impaired on the ESCoT compared to 0% of NC adults.
Overall these results demonstrate that the ESCoT is a useful test for clinical assessment and can aid in the detection of potential difficulties in ToM and social norm understanding.
许多现有的社会认知测试由于其长度、复杂性或所评估内容的不确定性，不适用于临床。爱丁堡社会认知测试（ESCoT）是一种新的社会认知测试，它通过动画互动来评估情感和认知心理理论以及对社会规范的人际和个人内理解。
为支持将ESCoT开发为一种临床工具，我们从一个神经典型人群（n = 236）中得出了临界分数，并试图在一组自闭症谱系障碍（ASD；n = 19）成人和在年龄及教育程度上匹配的神经典型对照（NC；n = 38）样本中验证ESCoT。ESCoT与已有的ASD、同理心、系统化特质和智力测试及问卷调查一起进行。
ESCoT各子测试的表现及ESCoT总分与传统测试的表现相关，显示出收敛效度。ASD成人在所有社会认知测量上表现较差。与ESCoT不同，已有的测试表现由言语理解能力预测。通过ROC曲线分析，我们表明ESCoT在区分ASD成人和NC方面比现有测试更有效。此外，42.11%的ASD成人在ESCoT上受损，而NC成人中这一比例为0%。
总体而言，这些结果表明ESCoT是一种用于临床评估的有用测试，有助于检测心理理论和社会规范理解方面的潜在困难。
