van de Glind M A B J, Gelmers F, Jiskoot L C, Franzen S, van Hemmen J, Assendelft L, Boersma H, Poelarends D, van Unen L, Spikman J M, van den Berg E
Alzheimer Center Erasmus MC and Department of Neurology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Alzheimer Center Groningen, Department of Neurology, Department of Neuropsychology and Department of Internal Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2025 Aug 7:1-8. doi: 10.1017/S1355617725101197.
Impairments in social interaction are common symptoms of dementia and necessitate the use of validated neuropsychological instruments to measure social cognition. We aim to investigate the Hinting Task - Dutch version (HT-NL), which measures the ability to infer intentions behind indirect speech to assess Theory of Mind, in dementia.
Sixty-six patients with dementia, of whom 22 had behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), 21 had primary progressive aphasia, and 23 had Alzheimer's disease (AD), and 99 healthy control participants were included. We examined the HT-NL's psychometric properties, including internal consistency, between-group differences using analyses of covariance with Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc comparisons, discriminative ability and concurrent validity using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), and construct validity using Spearman rank correlations with other cognitive tests.
Internal consistency was acceptable (Cronbach's = 0.74). All patient groups scored lower on the HT-NL than the control group. Patients with bvFTD scored lower than patients with AD dementia. The HT-NL showed excellent discriminative ability (AUC = 0.83), comparable to a test of emotion recognition (ΔAUC = 0.03, = .67). The HT-NL correlated significantly with a test for emotion recognition ( = .45), and with measures of memory and language ( = [.31, .40]), but not with measures of information processing speed, executive functioning, or working memory ( = [.00, .17]). Preliminary normative data are provided.
The HT-NL is a psychometrically sound and valid instrument and is useful for identifying Theory of Mind impairments in patients with dementia.
社交互动障碍是痴呆症的常见症状，因此需要使用经过验证的神经心理学工具来测量社会认知。我们旨在研究荷兰版暗示任务（HT-NL），该任务通过测量推断间接言语背后意图的能力来评估心理理论，以用于痴呆症研究。
纳入66例痴呆症患者，其中22例患有行为变异型额颞叶痴呆（bvFTD），21例患有原发性进行性失语症，23例患有阿尔茨海默病（AD），以及99名健康对照参与者。我们检查了HT-NL的心理测量特性，包括内部一致性、使用协方差分析及Bonferroni校正的事后比较的组间差异、使用接受者操作特征曲线（AUC）下面积的判别能力和同时效度，以及使用与其他认知测试的Spearman等级相关性的结构效度。
内部一致性可以接受（Cronbach's α = 0.74）。所有患者组在HT-NL上的得分均低于对照组。bvFTD患者的得分低于AD痴呆患者。HT-NL显示出出色的判别能力（AUC = 0.83），与情绪识别测试相当（ΔAUC = 0.03，p = .67）。HT-NL与情绪识别测试显著相关（r = .45），与记忆和语言测量指标相关（r = [.31, .40]），但与信息处理速度、执行功能或工作记忆测量指标无关（r = [.00, .17]）。提供了初步的常模数据。
HT-NL是一种心理测量学上合理且有效的工具，可用于识别痴呆症患者的心理理论障碍。
