Impairments of social cognition in mental disorders: searching for new assessment methods

Relevance. In the study of low-progressive forms of schizophrenia, differential diagnosis is often complicated by the absence of pronounced thought disorders and the presence of “subtle” symptomatology. This highlights the need to expand and update the repertoire of psychodiagnostic tools that, in addition to assessing cognitive and emotional domains, also capture features of patients’ social cognition. Projective methods aimed at identifying impairments of social cognition may serve as sensitive and informative instruments in differential psychodiagnostics. A pilot study was conducted using an author-developed projective technique designed to detect impairments across different components of social cognition in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The responses demonstrated weak probabilistic forecasting ability in social interaction scenarios. The study revealed the high sensitivity and diagnostic potential of the proposed projective test in assessing social cognition deficits in this clinical group. The novelty of the research lies in the potential for further validation and refinement of the method, which may ultimately provide medical psychologists with a new psychodiagnostic tool.
The purpose of the study: to analyze the responses of patients with schizophrenic spectrum disorders when performing the author’s projective technique.
Materials and methods: experimental-psychological, projective testing using photo images. The sample consisted of 64 respondents aged 18 to 59 years, including: 32 conditionally healthy subjects: women – 23; men – 9, and 32 patients with schizophrenic spectrum disorders (F20, F21), women – 10; men – 22).
Conclusion: Statistical analysis of the study data supports the assumption that the developed projective test is sufficiently sensitive for detecting impairments in social cognition among patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Compared to conditionally healthy participants, patients’ responses showed a greater tendency toward errors in probabilistic forecasting of actions and events in interpersonal situations. Their explanations within this domain were more elaborate and variable, underscoring the need for detailed content analysis of the obtained data.

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