Th.o.m.a.s.: An exploratory assessment of Theory of Mind in schizophrenic subjects

Abstract

a b s t r a c t A large body of literature agrees that persons with schizophrenia suffer from a Theory of Mind (ToM) deficit. However, most empirical studies have focused on third-person, egocentric ToM, underestimating other facets of this complex cognitive skill. Aim of this research is to examine the ToM of schizophrenic persons considering its various aspects (first-vs. second-order, first-vs. third-person, egocentric vs. allocentric, beliefs vs. desires vs. positive emotions vs. negative emotions and how each of these mental state types may be dealt with), to determine whether some components are more impaired than others. We developed a Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.) and administered it to 22 persons with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and a matching control group. Th.o.-m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview which allows a multi-component measurement of ToM. Both groups were also administered a few existing ToM tasks and the schizophrenic subjects were administered the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the WAIS-R. The schizophrenic persons performed worse than control at all the ToM measurements; however, these deficits appeared to be differently distributed among different components of ToM.Our conclusion is that ToM deficits are not unitary in schizophrenia, which also testifies to the importance of a complete and articulated investigation of ToM.

Bridging disparate symptoms of schizophrenia: a triple network dysfunction theory

“…The large degree of heterogeneity of ToM findings could be explained by the state variables and task differences, as was shown in a meta-analysis (Bora and Pantelis, 2013). In addition, it was demonstrated that the ToM deficit is not uniform in individual patients and is distributed varyingly among different components of ToM (Bosco et al, 2009). This opens the question of possible associations between the ToM impairment and psychopathology and/or cognitive functioning in schizophrenia.…”

The effect of alcohol dependence on automatic visuo-spatial perspective taking

“…Using the Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Bosco et al, 2009) In a more recent study by Maurage et al (2015) just over half the AD participants" performed significantly worse than controls across both a simple and more complex belief-tracking task. They found that disease-related factors (years of illness, units of alcohol consumed) was negatively related to AD participants" ability to track…”

The complexity of theory of mind

“…The Th.o.m.a.s. interview (Bosco et al, 2009) is meant to investigate the retrospective facet of ToM, based on a theoretically-driven decomposition thereof that aims at bringing its diversity and complexity into light. There is no way of doing this without recurring to the interviewee's deliberate introspection and discursive abilities.…”