Development and validation of the Four-Item Mentalising Index.

Abstract

Mentalising, also known as 'Theory of Mind', is the ability to understand and infer the cognitions of others, such as their perceptions, intentions, and beliefs. Although several tools have been designed to measure mentalising in adults, there exist methodological and practical limitations. Many of the existing measures conflate mentalising with similar constructs (e.g., empathy), and most are lengthy measures that are unsuitable for large population-based studies and clinical practice. These issues are currently hampering clinical and non-clinical investigations into mentalising and related social-cognitive abilities. Drawing on questionnaire measures of social cognition, we conceived a self-report mentalising scale, the Four-Item Mentalising Index (FIMI; Studies 1a & b). The FIMI was developed through a series of studies examining its factor structure and reliability (Studies 2a & b) and by testing its construct validity against a cognitive mentalising task, autistic traits, and comparing scores in autistic and non-autistic people (Studies 3a & b). Together, we demonstrate that the FIMI is a conceptually and methodologically robust tool for measuring mentalising ability in the general population, including autistic and non-autistic people. Future research directions and practical (clinical) applications of the scale are discussed, with a focus on improving understanding and management of (a)typical mentalising ability.

Further developing the Frith–Happé animations: A quicker, more objective, and web‐based test of theory of mind for autistic and neurotypical adults

“…Second, although our autistic and neurotypical participants were matched on general mental ability using an online task, future research should aim to replicate our findings using more in‐depth measures of IQ. Finally, whilst the current research validated the web‐based version of the task in autistic and neurotypical participants, we were not able to test whether performance on the task predicts performance on other ToM tasks, self‐report measures of ToM (e.g., Clutterbuck et al, 2021), or everyday social abilities/differences. Future research should aim to investigate, for example, if autistic participants' ToM performance indexes performance on a range of other ToM tasks, as well as autistic behaviour (e.g., using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; Lord et al, 2000) and social difficulties in the real world.…”

Rethinking fast and slow processing in autism.

“…Importantly, individuals who self-identified as autistic or those seeking a diagnosis were not eligible to participate. Many participants had also recently participated in our autism research (e.g., Clutterbuck et al, 2021; Note. Males = 1 and Females = 0 when coding sex.…”

“…Given these potential limitations of the REI, we suggest that the CRT offers a more accurate assessment of intuitive thinking. Nonetheless, further work is required to clarify the reasons for the discrepant findings, which may, for example, necessitate adapting the REI by ensuring that it measures the same construct in autistic and nonautistic people (e.g., testing measurement invariance; see Clutterbuck et al, 2021).…”

It looks like construct validity, but look again: Comment on Clutterbuck et al. (2021) and recommendations for test developers in the broad “empathy” domain.

“…Public Significance StatementWe demonstrate critical conceptual flaws in a recently published social cognition assessment tool (Clutterbuck et al, 2021a). We use this flawed test development project as a case study, describing major challenges for test development in the domains of empathy and social cognition.…”

“…As a focal case, we discuss a measure recently introduced in this journal, the Four-Item Mentalising Index (FIMI; Clutterbuck et al, 2021a), and we provide new data that demonstrate its construct invalidity and redundancy with existing measures. The conceptual flaws of the FIMI reflect all three of the general concerns mentioned above.…”