[A new method for the measurement of social cognition in schizophrenia]

Impairments in social cognitive functions and their long-term effects are well known in schizophrenia. However, so far no computer application has been available to assess these functions of patients. Our study is about introducing a new computer application measuring social cognitive abilities. The program (SCAN) is available on the following link and can be downloaded for anyone: psychiatry.pote.hu › Research › Workgroups › Schizophrenia. The hypothesis of our present study was that SCAN is able to assess the social cognitive ability of patients with schizophrenia in a rapid, complex and objective way.

86 schizophrenia patients and 101 healthy controls were examined. SCAN was used to present verbal and nonverbal tasks to measure four different domains of social cognition. SCAN registered the responses and the reaction times as well. Furthermore, an additional application was developed (called Scanalizer) to evaluate the results of a person being tested.

The results were evaluated by a two-dimensional analysis. This means that both task performance and the reaction time were taken into consideration while evaluating the results. As for the results, we found that the patients showed significantly worse functioning than the healthy subjects in the four domains of social cognition.

Based on our results, SCAN is effective enough to detect the atypical social processing of schizophrenia patients. Moreover, Scanalizer is capable of evaluating the social cognitive abilities of schizophrenia patients in a complex, relatively fast and objective way.