Reading The Mind In The Eyes Test Pdf
AbstractThe eyes provide important information for decoding the mental states of others. In this fMRI study we examined how reading the mind in the eyes develops across adolescence and we tested the developmental trajectories of brain regions involved in this basic perceptual mind-reading ability. Participants from three age groups (early adolescents, mid adolescents and young adults) participated in the study and performed an adapted version of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’, in which photographs of the eye region of faces were presented. Behavioral results show that the ability to decode the feelings and thoughts of others from the eyes develops before early adolescence. For all ages, brain activity was found in the posterior superior temporal sulcus during reading the mind in the eyes relative to a control condition requiring age and gender judgments using the same eyes stimuli.
Only early adolescents showed additional involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex, the inferior frontal gyrus and the temporal pole. The results are discussed in the light of recent findings on the development of the social brain network. , INTRODUCTIONA key component of human social interactions is mentalizing, which refers to the ability to read and understand the mental states of others.
A new study shows that certain types of reading can actually help us improve our sensitivity IQ. To find out how well you read the emotions of others, take the Well quiz, which is based on an assessment tool developed by University of Cambridge professor Simon Baron-Cohen.
The eyes are believed to play a key role in social interactions. Indeed, the eyes automatically capture attention and therefore convey a wealth of information important for social exchange. Humans are well able to read the mental states of others solely from the eyes. In this study, we examine how mind-reading from the eyes develops across adolescence and we test the developmental changes in the neural correlates associated with this basic perceptual mind-reading ability.Mind-reading from the eyes has previously been assessed with the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’, which requires participants to attribute the mental state of others from photographs of the eye region of faces.
This task has been used mainly to distinguish between mind-reading skills of autistic and healthy developing individuals (e.g.,; ), but has also been used to examine the neural correlates of mind-reading. Neuroimaging studies using this task in adults reported that reading the mind in the eyes results in activation in the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (see,;; ). The pSTS is believed to play an important role in extracting information about goals and intentions from the eyes and faces (e.g.;; ), and in the detection of social stimuli. The IFG has previously been associated with the mirror neuron system and the assessment of facial expression of emotions (e.g.;; ).Developmental models on social information processing have proposed that brain regions involved in the basic perceptual processing of social stimuli develop early in childhood (i.e. The detection node, which involves the pSTS) (see SIPN model ).
Indeed, young infants already display a sensitivity to social cues, such as the eyes and faces (e.g. These early signs of intention understanding are followed by an increase in explicit understanding of false beliefs which emerges around the ages 4–6 years (e.g.; ). Recent studies show that mentalizing abilities continue to develop during adolescence (;; ).
Evidence in support of protracted development of mentalizing comes largely from neuroimaging studies, which show that brain regions involved in more abstract reasoning about the mental states of others, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), undergo structural and functional changes during adolescence (; ). It has been argued that basic social perceptual processes involved in mental state attribution, such as decoding intentions from the eyes and faces, lie at the foundation of subsequent mentalizing operations (e.g.; ). To date, it is largely unknown whether these basic perceptual processes involved in mentalizing continue to develop across adolescence.The goal of the current study was to chart the developmental trajectories of brain regions involved in perceptual mind-reading, by using a modified version of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’. We obtained behavioral and fMRI data in participants of three age groups: 10- to 12-year-olds (early adolescents), 14- to 16-year-olds (mid adolescents) and 19- to 23-year-olds (young adults). The selection of these age groups enabled us to gain insights in the neural correlates in distinct phases across adolescent development.
Besides the mental state condition in which participants were asked to select which of four words best described what the person in the photograph was feeling or thinking, the task included a control condition requiring age and gender judgments using the same eyes stimuli.Based on previous behavioral studies showing that mentalizing abilities develop during early childhood (e.g. ), we predicted that children aged 10–12 year old would already perform well on the task. In the fMRI analyses, we tested whether activation in the pSTS and the IFG, the two regions most consistently found using the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task , were sensitive to developmental changes. Findings from brain imaging allow us to test for differences between age groups which may not be observed at the behavioral level. Previous neuroimaging studies on social perception (i.e.
Biological motion, eye gaze) or mentalizing reported inconsistent results for developmental changes in the pSTS. Whereas some studies showed comparable activation patterns between children and adults (; ), others have found increased activity in the pSTS in adults. In addition to the pSTS and the IFG, we tested for developmental changes in activity in other regions of the social brain network, including the mPFC and the temporal poles (; ). These regions were of special interest because prior studies have demonstrated protracted development of social brain regions during adolescence, especially in regions important for mentalizing (e.g.;; ). METHODS ParticipantsFifty-five healthy right-handed volunteers were included in the study. Data of one additional participant (11-year-old girl) was excluded from the analyses due to excessive head movement (3 mm). To examine developmental changes in distinct phases of development, we recruited participants from three age groups: Nineteen 10- to 12-year-olds (early adolescence/pubertal; 11 female; mean age = 11.57, s.d. = 0.95), 16 14–16 year olds (mid adolescence/post-pubertal; 8 female; mean age = 15.74, s.d. = 0.75) and 20 19- to 23-year-olds (young adults; 11 female; mean age = 20.51, s.d. = 0.90).
A chi-squared analysis showed no significant differences in gender distribution. For participants younger than 18 years a caregiver was asked to fill out the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; ) to confirm the absence of behavioral problems. All participants scored below clinical levels on all subscales. Participants and primary caregivers (for minors) gave informed consent for the study and received fixed payment for participation. All procedures were approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the University Medical Center.To assess pubertal development, a picture-based interview about puberty was administered in participants in the two youngest age groups (PBIP; ). Results revealed a significant difference in puberty levels between participants aged 10–12 years ( M = 2.11, s.d. = 0.81) and participants aged 14–16 year old M = 4.18, s.d. = 0.62; t(1, 33) = 70.1, P 0.1.
Experimental taskAll participants performed an adapted version of the child-version of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’ in an event-related fMRI session. In this task, participants were presented with photographs of the eye region of faces. The task had two conditions, a mental state condition and an age/gender condition, which were presented in four blocks of 14 trials in an ABAB or BABA design (counterbalanced across participants).
Twenty-eight different black-and-white photographs were used. Each photograph was used once in both task conditions, resulting in the presentation of 56 trials in total (2 × 28).Both task conditions required participants to select one of the four simultaneously presented words that best described the photograph.
In the mental state condition, participants were asked to select the word that best described what the person in the photograph was thinking or feeling. The mental state words included both basic emotions terms (i.e. Angry) and other mental state terms (i.e. Thinking about something) which were translated to Dutch by the help of native Dutch speakers (see ). The control condition involved age and gender judgments about the person depicted in the photograph. Participants were instructed to judge faces of 60-year olds or above as ‘older’, resulting in the following four response options: ‘younger male’, ‘younger female’, ‘older male’ or ‘older female’.
Since the age/gender condition always made use of the same four response options, the location of these phrases differed across trials. This was done to ensure that participants would read the phrases on each trial to increase comparability with the mental state condition in terms of reading requirements. An independent sample of 10 adults judged the age and gender of the faces using the same four response options. High levels of overlap between raters were reported for the gender judgments (25 faces 100%; 2 faces 88%; 1 face 67%). These judgments were comparable to the information provided in the manual of the original task. For the age judgments, however, three faces obtained a more mixed pattern of judgments concerning the age of the person (overlap between raters approached 50%), while for the remaining 25 faces high overlap was found (22 faces 100%; 2 faces 88%; 1 face 78%). To obtain a sensitive index about the performance of the participants in the fMRI experiment, it was decided to qualify the three items with mixed scores as ‘correct’ in case participants correctly judged the gender of the faces, independent of their judgment about age.Each trial started with a jittered fixation cross (between 600 and 8000 ms), followed by the presentation of the facial stimulus accompanied by four simultaneously presented words.
The facial stimulus was presented for 9 s, but participants were required to give a response within an 8 s time window. Responses could be made by pressing a button with the index and middle fingers of both hands. The position of the response buttons mapped to the location of the four response options on the screen.
Following the response, the word that was selected by the participant was underlined for the remaining length of the trial. If no response was observed within the specified time window, the text ‘too slow’ was presented for 1 s. This occurred on 1.29% and 0.39% of the trials of the mental state and the age/gender condition, respectively. During scanning, participants completed two runs of 28 trials and switched between conditions once during the run (e.g.
AB-short break-AB). Both runs started with a short instruction display explaining participants whether they would start with condition A or B. After 14 trials a display with the text ‘SWITCH’ was presented for 5 s to indicate the switch between task conditions.
Example trial of the Mental state condition of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task’ (adopted from ). ProcedurePrior to scanning, participants received eight practice trials and were asked to read a list of words containing the mental state terms used in the experiment to check whether they understood each word. Six 10- to 12-year olds did not understand one or two words, ensuring that the words were overall well known across participants. The unknown words were explained to the participants and trials containing these words were included in the analysis, except for those trials where participants gave an incorrect judgment.
Therefore, incorrect judgments on trials during the fMRI experiment could not be due to a misunderstanding of words. Incorrect judgments on trials containing words previously rated as unknown occurred only in five trials for four 10- to 12-year olds (3 participants: 1 trial; 1 participant: 2 trials), resulting in the exclusion of a total of five trials across participants in the behavioral analyses. Data acquisitionPrior to scanning, participants were familiarized with the scanner environment using a mock scanner. Scanning was performed using a 3.0-Tesla Philips Achieva scanner at the University Medical Center. Head motion was restricted using foam inserts that surrounded the head. Functional data were acquired using T2.-weighted Echo-Planar Images (EPI) (TR = 2.2 s, TE = 30 ms, slice-matrix = 80 × 80, FOV = 220, 35 2.75 mm transverse slices with 0.28 mm gap) during two functional runs of 156 volumes each.
The first two volumes of each run were discarded to allow for equilibration of T1 saturation effects. After the functional scanning, high-resolution T2.-weighted images and high resolution T1 anatomical images were obtained. FMRI data analysisData were analyzed using SPM5 (Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK). Translational movement parameters never exceeded 1 voxel (10 voxels) for multiple comparisons. All brain coordinates are reported in MNI atlas space.
RESULTS Behavioral resultsPerformance was examined in terms of accuracy (quantified as the percentage of correct responses) and response time (RT) on correct trials. In, mean percentages of correct responses and averaged RTs for each age group are presented (see also ). As can be seen in the figure, accuracy was generally lower and response times were longer for the mental state condition compared to the age/gender condition.
In addition, it can be seen that all age groups performed above the chance level of accuracy (25%), showing that the ability to decode the feelings and thoughts of others from the eyes develops at a young age. Accuracy as indicated by the percentage of correct trials ( A) and averaged response times for correct trials ( B) for the Mental state and the Age/gender condition for each age group.We submitted the percentages of correct responses to a repeated measures ANOVA with age group (10–12, 14–16, 19–23 years) as between subjects factor and condition (mental state, age/gender) as within subjects factor. This ANOVA confirmed that accuracy was higher for the age/gender condition, F(1, 52) = 150.31, P age/gender condition. Replicating previous studies using this task, this analysis revealed robust activation in the bilateral pSTS, extending into the middle and superior temporal gyrus, and in the left IFG, extending into the anterior insula (A). In addition, activation was found in the right middle cingulate cortex, right insula, supplementary motor area (SMA) and left precentral gyrus ( P mental state condition resulted in activation in the right middle orbital gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus, right superior occipital gyrus and superior parietal lobe ( P. Whole-brain results for the contrast Mental state Age/gender at P age/gender for each age group are presented. As can be seen in the figure, all age groups showed activity in the pSTS at the statistical threshold of P age/gender.
No regions were found that showed a peak activity in 14- to 16-year-olds or adults. In contrast, the ANOVA testing for a peak in 10- to 12-year-olds 2 −1 −1 resulted in several clusters of activation including the ventral mPFC (peak at: 15, 54, 12, z = 4.12; also significant after FDR correction, P. Whole-brain results for the contrast Mental state Age/gender which show a peak in activity for 10- to 12-year-olds ( A) at P age/gender.
Negative correlations between BOLD activity and age were found in the left IFG (peak at: −30, 30, −12, z = 3.52), and the right temporal pole (peak at: 36, 9, −33, z = 3.47). These regions overlap with the regions reported in the ANOVA testing for a peak in activity in 10- to 12-year-olds. All regions are listed in. No regions were found that showed a linear increase in activation with age.
DISCUSSIONThe goal of this study was to examine how basic perceptual mind-reading processes develop during adolescence and to test the developmental trajectories of brain regions involved in mental state attribution. All age groups performed well above chance level on the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’, showing that the general ability to decode the feelings and thoughts of others from the eyes develops at a young age. These findings are consistent with other studies which reported that children aged 8–10 years perform well on this task compared to younger participants. Post hoc analyses, however, revealed a slight dip in accurate performance in this mind-reading ability in 14- to 16-year-olds compared to adults, whereas the other groups did not differ from each other. This effect was only present in follow-up comparisons and therefore should be replicated in future studies.Consistent with previous neuroimaging studies, reading the mind in the eyes resulted in activation in the pSTS and the IFG, which are the two areas most consistently reported using the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’.
Importantly, pSTS activation was found for all age groups supporting the model of suggesting that brain regions involved in social perception (i.e. The detection node) develop early in life. The pSTS has often been implicated in the processing of signals of biological motion, such as information provided by the body and the eyes (e.g.; ), as well as in the visual analysis of other people’s mental states and intentions (, ).
Prior studies on development of mentalizing and eye gaze perception also reported activity in the pSTS in both children and adults (;; ). Possibly, the human system for social perception is already tuned to read the intentions of others from the eyes at a young age. Indeed, the eyes have been found to have a privileged status in attracting attention early in life.Besides activation in the pSTS, 10- to 12-year-old adolescents additionally activated bilateral IFG, vmPFC and the right temporal pole when reading the mind in the eyes. The question then arises: why are these brain regions additionally recruited in 10- to 12-year-olds despite adult-level activity in the pSTS and the lack of strong age-related differences in performance?
To our knowledge the current study is the first examining age-related differences in neural activation associated with the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’. Interestingly, results of this study fit well with previous fMRI studies on mentalizing and face processing showing increased activity in the mPFC and the IFG in adolescents and children relative to adults (e.g.;,; ).
The current findings add to this literature by extending it to basic social–perceptual processes involved in mentalizing. Together, this pattern of developmental changes may suggest that while brain regions involved in social perception develop early in life, the fine-tuning or functional specialization of other regions of the social brain network may continue during adolescence.There are several plausible explanations for the observed age-related differences in functional activity in the current study. At a general level, prior studies have suggested that the age-related decrease in activation in frontal regions could reflect maturational processes (e.g. Synaptic pruning) involved in the fine-tuning of neural systems (; ).
Indeed, brain regions such as the IFG and the mPFC show protracted structural development with a peak in gray matter around the onset of puberty followed by gray matter thinning (e.g.; ). Further, there is increasing evidence that pubertal hormones could have an impact on structural and functional brain maturation, as well as on behavior (; ).
It is possible that these biological events around the onset of puberty may contribute to the current results showing age-related differences in functional activity between 10 and 12-year-olds (mean Tanner stage 2.11) and older participants when reading the mind in the eyes. Interestingly, activity in the vmPFC showed a more categorical or non-linear change between 10- to 12 and 14- to 16-year-olds, suggesting that this region was specifically engaged in adolescents around the onset of puberty, in contrast to their older counterparts. In future research, it would be of considerable interest to test in more detail how pubertal hormones could shape brain activity and performance on the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’. Further, there is a need of studies trying to relate structural and functional brain maturation across adolescent development, for instance by tracking these changes longitudinally over time.Other explanations for the additional involvement of brain regions in early adolescents focus on the functional role of these regions to perform the task. In particular, regions such as the vmPFC and the temporal pole have been most consistently reported in theory of mind tasks that require more abstract reasoning about mental states (e.g.; ), instead of mental state decoding from limited visual cues, such as the eyes. As such, early adolescents might engage brain regions important for higher-order cognitive processes for reading the mind in the eyes, as well as regions involved in social perception (i.e.
Indeed, given the nature of the task requiring an understanding of (lexical) social concepts, it is possible that younger children rely more on social semantic knowledge when performing this task, which may be due to less experience with mental state terms or mental state attribution. Prior studies demonstrated that abstract social semantic information necessary to understand the mental states of others is mainly subserved by the same brain regions involved in theory of mind, including the mPFC and the temporal poles (;; ). This interpretation could also account for age-related differences in the IFG which has been associated with language processing and semantic retrieval (e.g. ).Finally, age-related differences in functional activity could hint towards the use of different strategies when performing the task. That is, early adolescents might employ a more explicit mentalizing strategy.
Alternatively, it has previously been suggested that children or adolescents may use a more ‘self-oriented’ strategy for mentalizing (; ). Although the vmPFC is believed to play a key role for understanding the intentions of others (Frith and Frith, 2003), prior studies indeed pointed to a role of this region in self-referential processes and self-evaluation (; ). In addition, it has been reported that the vmPFC could facilitate the understanding of what another person is thinking or feeling by self-referential processing (; ). On a related note, it is possible that developmental differences are related to the way older participants recruited the vmPFC during the age/gender condition. In particular, the mPFC is believed to be a key area of the ‘default mode network’ that is typically engaged during rest, allowing spontaneous self-reflection. It seems plausible that the age/gender condition required less cognitive effort in older participants, resulting in higher levels of activity in the mPFC. Nevertheless, this interpretation could not fully account for the results obtained for early adolescents, since activity in this age group was stronger for the mental state condition compared to activity during baseline and the control condition.An unresolved issue in the current study concerns the question whether the additional involvement of brain regions that support social-information processing in young adolescents reflects the engagement of a wider network of brain areas which is important for mind-reading, or whether these activations reflect performance-independent engagement.
Patient studies and studies with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) could test the functional role of these areas in mental state attribution more directly. In addition, a priority for future work should be to test which brain regions function as a network during the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’ by using functional connectivity analyses, and how this changes with age. Second, it should be noted that the conditions in the current study may also differ in terms of cognitive load, instead of exclusively in terms of mental state attribution (see also ). For instance, whereas the mental state condition involved the presentation of novel mental state terms on each trial, the control condition involved the presentation of the same response options, albeit at different locations. Although care was taken to calibrate both conditions, a difference in cognitive load precludes a straightforward comparison of task conditions in terms of mentalizing.
However, it is important to note that this problem is typical in fMRI studies using subtraction designs, requiring a close matching of task conditions. In future studies it will be important to optimize the control condition in terms of task difficulty, for instance by using different choice options on each trial.A significant next step would be to build a theoretical framework that could account for the emerging evidence showing a protracted functional development across adolescence in a wide range of mentalizing tasks. To achieve this goal, it would be important to test in more detail how biological events (i.e. Pubertal hormones) and experience could shape neural activity associated with mentalizing and the social-cognitive strategies that are used. A second priority for future work would be to determine whether the ability to read and understand the mental states of others requires a general level of abstract thinking that may be largely independent of specific task demands which still develops during adolescence, or whether regions of the social brain may be poorly functionally defined during adolescence followed by an increase in functional specialization or task selectivity with age (e.g.
‘interactive specialization’). Conflict of InterestNone declared.The authors would like to acknowledge the Cambridge Autism Research Centre for the use of the pictures of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes task’, and Carolien van Giessen and Cesco Willemse for assistance in recruitment of participants and testing. This work was supported by the NWO-MaGW De Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Maatschappij en Gedragswetenschappen, Grant No. 400-07-066 from the Dutch Science Foundation.
The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) measures theory of mind or how well individuals can put themselves into the mind of another person and attribute mental states to another person. The test itself takes approximately 20 min to complete and is relatively simple to administer and perform, making it a useful instrument for a variety of populations and settings.The test consists of a series of 37 photographs of the eye region of the face of different actors and actresses. In addition, the test includes instructions, an eight-page word definitions list, a response form, and an answer form. There is one practice stimulus and 36 experimental stimuli. Each of the 37 images has four response options: emotion words that are defined in the provided word definition list. The response form, which is given to the subject, lists the four response options that are presented with the image. The subject is instructed to circle the word that best describes what the person in the picture is thinking or feeling.
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Further, the subject is told to choose the word that is most suitable for the image even if more than one word feels applicable. The task is not timed, but the subject is instructed to work as quickly and as accurately as possible.The score on the RMET is calculated by counting the number of correct responses. While there are no normative data or scores, there are published averages for different populations.
History of the Instrument. The RMET was first developed in 1997 by Simon Baron-Cohen, Ph.D., and colleagues of the University of Cambridge (Baron-Cohen et al. He and his colleagues developed the test as a means of measuring theory of mind in adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Previous theory of mind tests had been proposed for children with ASD but did not provide an opportunity for insight into theory of mind functioning in adults with ASD.
In the seminal paper on the RMET, Baron-Cohen and colleagues ( ) suggested that deficits in theory of mind may underlie some of the difficulties seen in adults with ASD. In this initial study of the RMET, it was found that adults with ASD performed significantly worse (lower total score) than typically developing individuals and individuals with Tourette syndrome (clinical control group). Further, they found that within the typically developing control sample, females performed significantly better than males; this was not tested in the clinical control group (individuals with Tourette syndrome) or in the experimental group (individuals with ASD). Performance on the task did not correlate with IQ, but all individuals had IQ scores within the average or above average range.
This study concluded that theory of mind deficits existed in individuals with ASD, with an average or above average IQ, and that the RMET was successful in accurately measuring these subtle social difficulties. The authors also concluded that the observed theory of mind deficits in these individuals suggested that social cognition is independent of general intelligence (Baron-Cohen et al. ).Since its development in 1997, the RMET has been revised (Baron-Cohen et al. The authors identified three major psychometric problems with the first version of the RMET.
First, the initial test had only two response options, which limited the range and restricted the interpretation of individual differences. Second, these response options were the basic emotions (happy, sad, anger, fear, and disgust) and were judged to be too easy, leading to ceiling effects.
Finally, the two response choices were always semantic opposites; if the subjects were able to judge positive versus negative emotion, they would receive credit without having to utilize theory of mind principles. Thus, major modifications to the RMET appeared in the revised version, which was released in 2001. These modifications included increasing the number of response choices from 2 to 4 words, using only complex mental states as response choices rather than the basic emotions and including foil words that had the same emotional valence as the target word (i.e., target word, serious; foil words, ashamed, bewildered, and alarmed) instead of semantic opposites.
It was found that with these modifications, individuals in the typical control group performed below ceiling, indicating that the revised test had more power to discriminate and identify meaningful individual differences. The results of the initial study (Baron-Cohen et al. ) were replicated; individuals with ASD were significantly impaired on the revised RMET as well. In addition to the revised version of the adult RMET, a children’s version of the test was also released in 2001 (Baron-Cohen et al. The children’s version of the RMET is very similar to the adult version; however, the response choices have been changed to be more suitable for children. Psychometric Data. The RMET was initially developed as a behavioral test of theory of mind functioning level in adults with ASD.
Since its release in 1997, it has been widely used in behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies with both children and adults.The RMET has been instrumental in demonstrating theory of mind impairments associated with a variety of clinical populations including, but not limited to, ASD, depression, schizophrenia, and dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. ( ) found that the ability to decode other’s mental states was significantly impaired in severely depressed individuals and suggested that strategies that improve theory of mind reasoning may be useful in therapeutic interventions for severely depressed individuals. Furthermore, impaired theory of mind functioning in individuals with schizophrenia has also been evaluated using the RMET. ( ) assessed mental state decoding in individuals with schizophrenia using the RMET and found that the RMET was successful in predicting level of social functioning.
In addition, they determined that mental state decoding seems to be the most important cognitive mediator of social functioning in individuals with schizophrenia. Finally, the RMET has also been used in studies of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Gregory et al. ( ) found that patients with frontal variant frontotemporal dementia were impaired on the RMET and that individuals with Alzheimer’s disease were not significantly impaired. They concluded that theory of mind impairment may explain some of the deficits in interpersonal behavior experienced in frontal variant frontotemporal dementia and not in Alzheimer’s disease.The RMET has also been widely used in fMRI studies of ASD and other psychiatric disorders. Many studies have found that the deficits in theory of mind in individuals with ASD, as measured using the RMET, are substantiated by different brain activation patterns in response to social stimuli (Baron-Cohen et al.; Gordon et al.
Furthermore, Hirao et al. ( ) found that in individuals with schizophrenia, poor performance on the RMET was associated with reduced gray matter in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). Thus, they suggested that this gray matter reduction may be important in understanding theory of mind deficits experienced by individuals with schizophrenia. Finally, clinical effects of oxytocin for individuals with ASD have been evaluated using the RMET. Performance on the RMET was enhanced after intranasal administration of oxytocin in individuals with ASD (Domes et al.; Guastella et al.; Gordon et al.
Reading The Mind In The Eyes Test Pdf Download
These findings suggest that oxytocin may be involved in theory of mind deficits associated with ASD (Domes et al.