Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Psychiatr Res. 2015 Jul 13;68:254–260. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.07.008

Table 1.

Description of Social Cognition Measures

Task Format Description
Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire, abbreviated version (AIHQ) Paper and pencil This task is designed to evaluate hostile social cognition biases. Participants are asked to read 5 hypothetical, negative situations with ambiguous causes (ie, intentional or accidental) and imagine that the situation is happening to them.
Bell Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task (BLERT) Stimuli presented via computer, responses recorded by experimenter The BLERT measures the ability of the participants to correctly identify 7 different emotional states: happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, anger, or no emotion. The participants view 21 video segments—each ten seconds long.
Penn Emotion Recognition Test (ER-40) Stimuli presented via computer, responses recorded by experimenter The ER-40 measures facial affect recognition ability. Participants are shown 40 color photographs of static faces expressing 4 basic emotions (ie, happiness, sadness, anger, or fear) and no emotion. T
Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test Stimuli presented via computer, responses recorded by experimenter The Eyes tasks measures ability to determine the mental state of others based on expression in the eye region of the face. Participants view 36 photos of pairs of eyes along with four possible options of descriptor words for the thought/feeling being portrayed.
The Awareness of Social Inferences Test, Part III (TASIT) Stimuli presented via computer, responses recorded by experimenter The TASIT consists of video clips of everyday social interactions, and Part III, the Social Inference-Enriched test, assesses participants’ ability to detect lies and sarcasm.
Hinting Task Paper and pencil The Hinting Task measures the ability of individuals to deduce the true meaning behind indirect speech. The participant is read 10 short passages involving an interaction between two people. Each passage ends with one of the characters hinting at something.
Trust Test Paper and Pencil This task assesses participants’ ability to make complex social judgments of trustworthiness. Participants rated 42 faces for trustworthiness on a scale from −3 to 3. Faces were presented in grayscale and represented ethnically diverse males and females.
Relationships Across Domains (RAD) Paper and Pencil The RAD measures competence in the perception of four relational models: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. The abbreviated version is comprised of 15 vignettes involving different male-female dyads that represent one of the relational models. Participants read each vignette and answered 3 yes/no questions about whether a future behavior was likely to happen given the described relationship.

Note. See article text for references