Analyzing social cognition and understanding of social inferences in patients with multiple sclerosis. A comparative study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to investigate the process of understanding social inferences and metaphors and the pragmatic use of language through emotion recognition and social inference tests in patients diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS) mainly characterized by neurodegeneration. Additionally, we tried to identify a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker correlated with the degree and rate of cognitive decline in progressive MS patients. METHOD: For the purpose of the present study 25 patients, aged 20 up to 55 years, with PPMS were evaluated. All patients were admitted in the First Department of Neurology, AHEPA Hospital of Thessaloniki. The control group was 30 healthy individuals which participated in the study voluntarily. The groups were matched for age, gender, years of education and intelligence. INSTRUMENTS: Social inference was examined with the Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT). The TASIT consists of two different parts. The "Tasit Part I: Emotion Evaluation Task (EET - FORM A). The EET is the first part of a broader audiovisual tool designed for the clinical assessment of social perception that is called "The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT)". The second Part of the test TASIT - Social Inference examines the viewer's ability to determine the speaker's meaning and intentions based upon the dialogue, emotional expression, and paralinguistic cues. RESULTS: The findings indicate that patients with PPMS show decline in emotion recognition and social inference abilities, as compared with the control group. More specifically, PPMS patients have problems to understand the affective state of the others mirroring a specific problem in ToM. CONCLUSION: The level of Theory of Mind in the form of sarcasm understanding decreases significantly in MS patients compared with healthy group potentially mirroring impairment in ToM in general. The results indicate that MS group is not resilient to understand metaphoric speech. More specifically, their pathology seems to be able to affect complex ToM abilities.

Self-report instruments of cognitive failures as screening tools for Subjective Cognitive Impairment in older adults.

BACKGROUND: The term "Subjective Cognitive Impairment (SCI)" is the most widely accepted term for cognitive complaints of otherwise apparently healthy older adults. It is presently clear that SCI might be a risk factor for the development of Mild Cognitive Impairment and dementia. As regards SCI measurement and potential diagnosis, several studies showed that SCI is a condition in which people score in the normal range on common tests but believe they experience cognitive decline. Hence, to assess the characteristic of the SCI subtle cognitive decline, self-report measures were developed to estimate "self-experience" of minimal decline in cognition seem the most appropriate tools. In this vein, the present study aimed at examining the capacity of the Greek version of two self-report instruments of the aforementioned type to detect SCI in community dwelling older adults. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study sample consisted of 295 participants, who were allocated into four age-groups: young adults, middle-aged adults, older adults and older-old adults. The first three groups were gender and education-matched. The participants were examined via two objective tests of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) which is a neuropsychological battery designed to measure executive functions. In specific, they were tested via the D-KEFS Tower Test (TT) which mainly measures "planning" function, and the D-KEFS Color-Word Interference Test (C-WIT) which primarily measures "inhibition" and "switching" functions. Both tests consist of four conditions. The participants were also asked to answer to: (a) the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ), and (b) the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ), which were designed to assess subjective estimations of everyday slips of actions and cognitive failures, and episodic memory slips in everyday life, respectively. As concerns the psychometric qualities of the two questionnaires, a single-factor structure of the Greek versions of the CFQ and the PRMQ was verified in a previous study via the application of Confirmatory Factor Analysis. RESULTS: No age-group effects on CFQ score were found. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were subsequently performed, using objective tests' scores as test variables and CFQ classification based on the 75th percentile score, as state variable. ROC curves analyses using "C-WIT conditions' 1, 2 time of completion" as test variables and CFQ classification, in older adult age-group, as state variable, showed that a CFQ score ≥47 is indicative of an early stage of objective cognitive impairment in older age. Cronbach's α values, for the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire ranged from .89 (young adults) to .93 (older adults). No age-group effects on PRMQ score were observed. ROC curves analyses were performed, using objective measures' scores as well as CFQ score as test variables and PRMQ classification based on the 75th percentile score, as state variable. These analyses using "C-WIT conditions' 3, 4 time of completion" as well as CFQ score as test variables and PRMQ classification, in older adult age-group, as state variable, showed that a PRMQ score ≥43 is indicative of an early stage of objective cognitive impairment as well as of subjective estimations of general cognitive decline in older age. CONCLUSION: Self-report questionnaires of "everyday" cognitive and memory failures seem to be associated with specific objective tests of cognition in aging. Hence, they are useful tools for detecting early cognitive impairment at least in older adults. Their administration together with objective cognitive tasks of high difficulty could substantially help for SCI screening. Given that there is also evidence that the experience of subtle impairment in cognition is related to increased likelihood of biomarker abnormalities indicative of AD pathology, the assessment of subjective estimations is revealed as a useful primary indicator of early AD effects on cognitive functioning.

Effects of cognitive ability and affect on school mathematics performance and feelings of difficulty.

Research on cognitive ability and affect has indicated that both of them may function at various levels of generality (LG). This study aimed to investigate the possible effects of LG on school mathematics performance and related feelings of difficulty. Two hundred forty-three students of seventh, eighth, and ninth grades of both genders participated in the study. They were tested with cognitive ability tasks, affective questionnaires, and two school mathematics batteries. The difficulty of each of the school mathematics task was also rated on a 4-point scale. The two school mathematics batteries and affective questionnaires were re-administered 1 year after the first testing. Rates of difficulty were also taken. Path analysis showed that performance was mainly influenced by cognitive ability factors, whereas feelings of difficulty were influenced by performance, cognitive ability, and affective factors. The long-term relations between cognitive and affective factors are discussed.