CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 488Dementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchHistorical and Modern Theater StudiesPsychological Testing and Assessment

Clinical assessment of social cognitive function in neurological disorders

Open access
Henry, Julie D., von Hippel, William, Molenberghs, Pascal, Lee, Teresa, Sachdev, Perminder S.·2016·Nature Reviews Neurology
DOI 10.1038/nrneurol.2015.229
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Social cognition broadly refers to the processing of social information in the brain that underlies abilities such as the detection of others' emotions and responding appropriately to these emotions. Social cognitive skills are critical for successful communication and, consequently, mental health and wellbeing. Disturbances of social cognition are early and salient features of many neuropsychiatric, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, and often occur after acute brain injury. Its assessment in the clinic is, therefore, of paramount importance. Indeed, the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) introduced social cognition as one of six core components of neurocognitive function, alongside memory and executive control. Failures of social cognition most often present as poor theory of mind, reduced affective empathy, impaired social perception or abnormal social behaviour. Standard neuropsychological assessments lack the precision and sensitivity needed to adequately inform treatment of these failures. In this Review, we present appropriate methods of assessment for each of the four domains, using an example disorder to illustrate the value of these approaches. We discuss the clinical applications of testing for social cognitive function, and finally suggest a five-step algorithm for the evaluation and treatment of impairments, providing quantitative evidence to guide the selection of social cognitive measures in clinical practice.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/nrneurol.2015.229

Cites

119 of 119 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • A decline in social-cognitive abilities could affect an individual's evaluation of their relationships as well as the quality of their social interactions.

    “A decline in social-cognitive abilities, which include detecting and responding to social cues and other people’s emotions (Henry, Von Hippel, Molenberghs, Lee, & Sachdev, 2016), could affect an individual’s evaluation of their relationships as well as the quality of their social interactions.”

    From Longitudinal Associations Between Loneliness and Cognitive Ability in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 (2019) · cites this paper as Henry, Von Hippel, Molenberghs, Lee, & Sachdev, 2016

  • The paradigm might approximate some features of human emotion recognition tasks.

    “Altogether, this indicates that our paradigm might approximate some features of human emotion recognition tasks [3,43].”

    From Oxytocin Signaling in the Central Amygdala Modulates Emotion Discrimination in Mice (2019) · cites this paper as [3]

  • Human emotion recognition paradigms include the presentation of positively and negatively valenced emotions.

    “Human emotion recognition paradigms include the presentation of positively and negatively valenced emotions [3].”

    From Oxytocin Signaling in the Central Amygdala Modulates Emotion Discrimination in Mice (2019) · cites this paper as [3]

  • Emotion recognition tasks rely on the ability to discriminate basic expression of emotions in others and are the most extensively used paradigms to assess human social cognition, with direct relevance for a number of pathologies, including autism and schizophrenia.

    “Emotion recognition tasks rely on the ability to discriminate basic expression of emotions in others and are the most extensively used paradigms to assess human social cognition [3,43], with direct relevance for a number of pathologies, including autism and schizophrenia [5,6].”

    From Oxytocin Signaling in the Central Amygdala Modulates Emotion Discrimination in Mice (2019) · cites this paper as [3]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Henry, J. D., von Hippel, W., Molenberghs, P., Lee, T., & Sachdev, P. S.
Affiliations
  • The University of Queensland (AU)
  • Monash University (AU)
  • UNSW Sydney (AU)
Corresponding author
Henry, Julie D.
ORCID
Venue
Nature Reviews Neurology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2015-12-16
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
28-39
ISSN
  • 1759-4758 (ISSN-L)
  • 1759-4766
DOI
10.1038/nrneurol.2015.229
OpenAlex
W2220546658
Semantic Scholar
4876295f45b42da2791202c473ef1f4720a49867
Cited by
488
References
119
Citations by year
2026: 39 · 2025: 52 · 2024: 61 · 2023: 58 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 59 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 12
FWCI
3.12
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Nature Reviews Neurology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UNSWorks (UNSW Sydney) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • UNSWorks (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical and Modern Theater Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
Keywords
social cognition, theory of mind, affective empathy, social perception, social behavior, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, neuropsychological assessment, neurodegenerative diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders, neuropsychiatric disorders, DSM-5, evaluation algorithm
MeSH terms
Social Communication Disorder, Algorithms, Alzheimer Disease, Brain, Brain Injuries, Brain Mapping, Emotions, Empathy, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Neuropsychological Tests, Mental Recall, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenic Psychology, Social Behavior Disorders, Neurotransmitter Agents, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Neurocognitive Disorders, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Executive Function, Theory of Mind, Emotional Intelligence

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review