Evaluation of a newly developed measure of theory of mind: The virtual assessment of mentalising ability

Abstract

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Virtual Assessment of Mentalising Ability (VAMA). The VAMA consists of 12 video clips depicting a social drama imposed within an interactive virtual environment with questions assessing the mental states of virtual friends. Response options capture the continuum of ability (i.e., impaired, reduced, accurate, and hypermentalising) within first- and second-order cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM). Sixty-two healthy participants were administered the VAMA, three other ToM measures, and additional measures of neurocognitive abilities and social functioning. The VAMA had sound internal consistency and high test-retest reliability. Significant correlations between performance on the VAMA and other ToM measures provided preliminary evidence of convergent validity. Small to moderate correlations were observed between performance on the VAMA and neurocognitive tasks. Further, the VAMA was found to correlate significantly with indices of social functioning and was rated as more immersive, more reflective of everyday ToM processes, and was afforded a higher recommendation than an existing computer-based ToM task. These results provide potential evidence that the VAMA is an ecologically valid tool that is sensitive to the spread of ability that can occur in ToM subprocesses and may be a valuable addition to existing ToM measures. Future research should explore the validity and utility of the VAMA in larger, more diverse samples of healthy adult and clinical populations.

Web‐based Assessment of Social–Emotional Skills in School‐Aged Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Physiological indicators may measure neural or hormonal metrics of change, but they often do not reliably correlate with the behaviors they are meant to indicate (De Los Reyes et al, ; Nelson, Perlman, Hajcak, Klein, & Kotov, ; Patriquin, Lorenzi, Scarpa, Calkins, & Bell, ). Finally, a growing array of computer‐based tools offer objective performance metrics of social, cognitive, or perceptual abilities (e.g., Canty, Neumann, Fleming, & Shum, ; Dadds, Hawes, & Merz, ; Dziobek et al, ; Golan, Baron‐Cohen, & Golan, ; Klin, ; Sivaratnam, Cornish, Gray, Howlin, & Rinehart, ; Tanaka et al, ; Wirth & Klieme, ). Most of these either target a single construct, must be administered in a highly structured laboratory setting with a proctor's support, or lack broader population norms to which performance may be compared.…”

Theory of mind, emotion recognition, delusions and the quality of the therapeutic relationship in patients with psychosis – a secondary analysis of a randomized-controlled therapy trial

“…Concluding, future studies that address the question of associations between ToM problems and delusions might be well-advised to use tasks with more pronounced ecological validity, for example, ToM assessment using videos, virtual reality (Virtual Assessment of Mentalising Ability (VAMA) [65] or investigating ToM problems in real-life using the experience sampling method [66]. Nevertheless, if there are still no associations between problems in Hyper-ToM and delusions, theoretical models correctly excluded ToM as one of the important cognitive factors involved in the formation and maintenance of delusions or positive symptoms [12,13].…”

Metaperception in Adolescents With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Further research is needed to understand the associations between perceptions, metaperceptions, and theory of mind abilities. Measures beyond the traditional theory of mind assessments (e.g., Canty et al 2017) may provide additional information on what features of perspective-taking are unique versus common to different social cognitive tasks.…”