Artikelen + lecture week 6

Question 1

What is social cognition?

Answer 1

Processing of social information in the brain that underlies abilities such as the detection of others’ emotions and responding appropriately

Question 2

What are common social cognitions complaints?

Answer 2

Poor Theory of Mind (ToM), reduced affective empathy, impaired social perception or abnormal social behaviour

Question 3

What is theory of mind?

Answer 3

The ability to understand the mental states of others and to appreciate that these mental states might differ from our own

Question 4

Social cognition impairments rarely occur in isolation; they are often accompanied by impairments in…?

Answer 4

perception, language and executive function

Question 5

OFC: lesions in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) are associated with?

Answer 5

Disinhibited social behaviour

Question 6

ACC: lesions in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are associated with?

Answer 6

Motivational and emotional behavioural disturbances

Question 7

TPJ: damage to the temporoparietal junction disrupts the ability to?

Answer 7

View a situation from another person’s perspective and is linked to abnormal moral reasoning

Question 8

Schizophrenia shows the following social cognitive impairments:

Answer 8

Difficulty in maintaining relationships with family and friends, disengagement from socially important activities and poor self-care. The ToM is central in understanding the poor social functioning in schizophrenia.

Question 9

Schizophrenia patients show poor performance on:

Answer 9

False belief tasks, comprehend speech with a hidden meaning (sarcasm) and facial expressions.

Question 10

People with autism can show deficits in:

Answer 10

Communication skills and social interaction, maladaptive emotional reactions and reduced affective empathy

Question 11

Social impairment in AD is characterized by?

Answer 11

Problems in managing behaviour, increased agitation and poor relationships interpreting cues to emotional states, thus having problems with identifying others’ emotions

Question 12

The Frontal Systems Behaviour Scale (FrSBe) is used for?

Answer 12

Differentiating between FTD and AD (FTD scores higher)

Question 13

What are the effects of synchronizing movements in time with other people on social attitudes and behaviors?

Answer 13

Synchronizing movements can promote affiliative attitudes, cooperative behaviors, greater liking, and greater trust.

Question 14

What is the role of VR in isolating the role of synchrony in bonding effects (and thus solely measure synchrony and nothing else)?

Answer 14

VR is a solution to isolate the role of synchrony in bonding effects by representing the participant with a first-person perspective and programming the other avatars to mirror the participant’s movements.

Question 15

What is the content of T-ScEmo for patients with TBI?

Answer 15

T-ScEmo is aimed at improving social cognition, regulation of social behavior and participation in everyday life and consists of 20 one-hour individual sessions incorporating three modules: emotion perception, perspective taking and ToM, and regulation of social behavior.

Question 16

What are the three aspects of social cognition?

Answer 16

1. Perceiving social information (visual, auditory, semantic)
2. Understanding social information (ToM)
3. Regulation of social behavior (adjust and inhibit)

Question 17

What is meant by postive and negative behaviors?

Answer 17

Positive behaviors: added behavioral symptoms. For example: disregarding personal boundaries, aggression, rude comments, temper outbursts.

Negative behavrios: lacking behaviors that you would normally expect. For example: avoiding social contact altogether, lack of appropriate responses.

Question 18

Damage in which specific areas lead to impairments in social cognition?

Answer 18

Orbitofrontal or ventromedial prefrontal

Question 19

People with fronto-temporal syndromes show impaired performance on tasks in which they have to?

Answer 19

View facial emotions and identify these emotions

Question 20

When speaking of the ‘clinical presentation’ of social cognition impairments, 1 or more of the following symptoms should be present:

Answer 20

• Poor social perception;
• Impaired ToM (judging someone else’s mental state);
• Reduced emotional empathy (responding to someone else’s
  mental state);
• Abnormal social behavior.

Question 21

What are the different forms of FTD?

Answer 21

• Behavioral FTD: primary symptom is loss of social cognition;
• Semantic dementia: fluent, grammatically correct speech but problems in comprehension;
• Progressive nonfluent aphasia: nonfluent speech production;
• Cortico-basal syndrome: movement disorders (also referred to Parkinson’s plus syndrome).

Question 22

Diagnosis of ASD is based on behavior symptoms:

Answer 22

Communication problems, repetitive behaviors, difficulty with changing routine and altered sensory processing

Question 23

What are common testing methods for measuring social cognition?

Answer 23

FEEST: Facial Expression of Emotion – Stimuli and Tests: includes different stimuli and tests (e.g., Ekman 60 faces test).

Faux Pas: includes written/spoken scenarios and questions about social acceptability

TASIT: The Awareness of Social Inference test: videotaped vignettes: measures emotional evaluation and social inference.

ERT: Emotion Recognition Test: video material with facial expressions of different intensities

Question 24

Yeates (2014) identified 3 different approaches that can be used to treat social cognition impairments:

Answer 24

• Explicit skills training methods: it is important to test the transfer of these skills to real-life settings.
• Embodied/affective methods: e.g., match facial expressions, monitoring own bodily feelings.
  Goal: to get a better understanding of emotional responses.
• Relational approached: e.g., include spouse or children or parents in the therapy.

Question 25

What is interpersonal synchrony?

Answer 25

Moving together in time. Interpersonal synchrony affects social aspects. It can be easily manipulated by using VR