Italian adaptation of the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT): A new tool for the assessment of theory of mind and social norm understanding

Abstract

The relevance of social cognition assessment has been formally described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5. However, social cognition tools evaluating different socio-cognitive components for Italian-speaking populations are lacking. The Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT) is a new social cognition measure that uses animations of everyday social interactions to assess (i) cognitive theory of mind, (ii) affective theory of mind, (iii) interpersonal social norm understanding, and (iv) intrapersonal social norm understanding. Previous studies have shown that the ESCoT is a sensitive measure of social cognition in healthy and clinical populations in the United Kingdom. This work aimed to adapt and validate the ESCoT in an Italian population of healthy adults. A translation-back-translation procedure was followed to create and refine the Italian version. Then, 94 healthy adults (47 females, mean age 35 ± 15.9) completed the ESCoT, a battery of conventional social cognition tests (Yoni; Reading the Mind in the Eyes Strange Stories, and Social Norm Questionnaire, SNQ) and measures of intelligence and executive functions. Reliability, convergent validity, and predictors of performance on the ESCoT were examined. Results demonstrated good reliability of the ESCoT and an association between the ESCoT scores and some traditional social cognition tests (Yoni cognitive subscale, SNQ). Hierarchical regression results showed that the ESCoT total score was associated with age. Also, the ESCoT subscore (intrapersonal social norm understanding) was associated with education. These findings support the ESCoT as a valid tool testing social norm understanding, a reliable measure of social cognition for an adult Italian population, and provides further evidence that the ESCoT is sensitive to age- and education-related changes in social cognition, and it is a task not affected by general cognitive functioning.

Assessing theory of mind and social norms understanding in Indian children: adaptation and validation of Edinburgh social cognition test

“…The Cronbach alpha for the ESCoT_IC for Indian children yielded an acceptable value, which was higher than the value reported among adults (0.70) (Baksh et al , 2018; Isernia et al , 2022). Overall, the values are in an acceptable range with a good level of internal consistency (Cortina, 1993).…”

“…Recently, ESCoT was adapted for adult Italian population in which two items were dropped. One of the common dropped items is “disobeying parking regulation.” Although, the items in the Italian version were eliminated as a result of poor correlation with other items in the test (Isernia et al , 2022).…”

Human reasoning on social interactions in naturalistic context: insights from the theory of mind brain circuits.

“…However, these tests are not without their limitations such lacking important contextual information, offering exaggerated interactions or being dubbed from other languages. The Edinburgh Social Cognition test (ESCoT; (Baksh et al, 2018;Baksh et al, 2021;Baksh et al, 2020;Poveda et al, 2022) is a measure of ToM and social norm understanding, it has been implemented and validated in the United Kingdom, and recently adapted for the Italian culture (Isernia, MacPherson, et al, 2022). The ESCoT assesses social abilities through everyday scenarios presented by dynamic cartoons showing a social interaction in which a character adheres to or violates a social rule in the face of a contextual request.…”

“…Previous research has revealed that the ESCoT is not in uenced by intellectual abilities or executive functions in healthy participants (Baksh et al, 2018;Isernia, MacPherson, et al, 2022), distinguishing itself from other social cognition tests (Aboula a-Brakha et al, 2011; Charlton et al, 2009). In addition, the ESCoT has shown good diagnostic validity in discriminating between autistic and non-autistic participants (Baksh et al, 2021), individuals with and without acquired brain injuries (Poveda et al, 2022) and sensitive to behavior change in people with dementia, unlike established tests of social cognition (Baksh et al, 2023).…”