Socog: A Novel Social Cognitive Training Program for People With Schizophrenia

Marsh, Pamela J.; Langdon, Robyn; McGuire, Jonathan; Harris, Anthony; Polito, Vince; Anandakumar, Thushara; Lee, Bianca; Singh, Subba; Coltheart, Max

doi:10.1016/s0920-9964(12)70138-x

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Recently, there has been growing recognition that social cognition and interaction skills should be the focus of targeted cognitive remediation programmes for patients with schizophrenia (e.g., Marsh et al, 2012; Marsh, Langdon, McGuire, Polito, & Coltheart, 2013). The current study suggests that virtual reality may provide a useful tool for implementing these interventions—at least in the first instance—as they provide a less intimidating and safer environment for social cognition and information processing training to be delivered without compromising ecological validity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responding to joint attention bids in schizophrenia: An interactive eye-tracking study

Caruana

Seymour

Brock

et al. 2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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This study investigated social cognition in schizophrenia using a virtual reality paradigm to capture the dynamic processes of evaluating and responding to eye gaze as an intentional communicative cue. A total of 21 patients with schizophrenia and 21 age-, gender-, and IQ-matched healthy controls completed an interactive computer game with an on-screen avatar that participants believed was controlled by an off-screen partner. On social trials, participants were required to achieve joint attention by correctly interpreting and responding to gaze cues. Participants also completed non-social trials in which they responded to an arrow cue within the same task context. While patients and controls took equivalent time to process communicative intent from gaze shifts, patients made significantly more errors than controls when responding to the directional information conveyed by gaze, but not arrow, cues. Despite no differences in response times to gaze cues between groups, patients were significantly slower than controls when responding to arrow cues. This is the opposite pattern of results previously observed in autistic adults using the same task and suggests that, despite general impairments in attention orienting or oculomotor control, patients with schizophrenia demonstrate a facilitation effect when responding to communicative gaze cues. Findings indicate a hyper-responsivity to gaze cues of communicative intent in schizophrenia. The possible effects of self-referential biases when evaluating gaze direction are discussed, as are clinical implications.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responding to joint attention bids in schizophrenia: An interactive eye-tracking study

Caruana

Seymour

Brock

et al. 2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…Two facilitators ran training in small groups of 3−6 participants using a manual-driven suite of novel activities and games [38]. The training approach of SoCog provides repeated exposure and practice of the skills that underlie complex mental-state reasoning abilities or emotion recognition abilities as described below.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The specific training approach of SoCog-MSRT is that participants receive repeated exposure and practice of the skills that underlie complex mental-state reasoning abilities [38]. In SoCog-MSRT, this interactive model uses the spontaneous discussion of participants’ own experiences as a platform upon which to extend treatment and improve generalisation.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We designed other new activities/games to reinforce and build on the information about salient facial features. Specifically, novel materials consist of a range of card games, board games and computer games that direct participants’ attention to the importance of facial features (eyes, nose, and mouth) and how they move to distinguish between commonly confused facial expressions [38]. Thus, similar to SoCog-MSRT, SoCog-ERT comprised repeated exposure and practice of the skills that underlie emotion recognition.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A quasi-randomized feasibility pilot study of specific treatments to improve emotion recognition and mental-state reasoning impairments in schizophrenia

et al. 2016

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BackgroundImpaired ability to make inferences about what another person might think or feel (i.e., social cognition impairment) is recognised as a core feature of schizophrenia and a key determinant of the poor social functioning that characterizes this illness. The development of treatments to target social cognitive impairments as a causal factor of impaired functioning in schizophrenia is of high priority. In this study, we investigated the acceptability, feasibility, and limited efficacy of 2 programs targeted at specific domains of social cognition in schizophrenia: “SoCog” Mental-State Reasoning Training (SoCog-MSRT) and “SoCog” Emotion Recognition Training (SoCog-ERT).MethodThirty-one participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were allocated to either SoCog-MSRT (n = 19) or SoCog-ERT (n = 12). Treatment comprised 12 twice-weekly sessions for 6 weeks. Participants underwent assessments of social cognition, neurocognition and symptoms at baseline, post-training and 3-months after completing training.ResultsAttendance at training sessions was high with an average of 89.29 % attendance in the SoCog-MSRT groups and 85.42 % in the SoCog-ERT groups. Participants also reported the 2 programs as enjoyable and beneficial. Both SoCog-MSRT and SoCog-ERT groups showed increased scores on a false belief reasoning task and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test. The SoCog-MSRT group also showed reduced personalising attributional biases in a small number of participants, while the SoCog-ERT group showed improved emotion recognition.ConclusionsThe results are promising and support the feasibility and acceptability of the 2 SoCog programs as well as limited efficacy to improve social cognitive abilities in schizophrenia. There is also some evidence that skills for the recognition of basic facial expressions need specific training.Trial registrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12613000978763. Retrospectively registered 3/09/2013.

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Socog: A Novel Social Cognitive Training Program for People With Schizophrenia

Cited by 2 publications

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Responding to joint attention bids in schizophrenia: An interactive eye-tracking study

Responding to joint attention bids in schizophrenia: An interactive eye-tracking study

A quasi-randomized feasibility pilot study of specific treatments to improve emotion recognition and mental-state reasoning impairments in schizophrenia

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