A pilot study of social cognition and interaction training (SCIT) for schizophrenia Dear Editors, There has been growing interest in the role of social cognition in schizophrenia (Penn et al., 1997). Much of the enthusiasm is due to the functional significance of social cognition; social cognition contributes variance beyond neurocognition to social functioning in schizophrenia (Brune, 2005; Va...

Social cognition impairments are pervasive in the frontotemporal dementias (FTD). These deficits would be triggered by (a) basic emotion and face recognition processes as well as by (b) higher level social cognition (e.g., theory of mind, ToM). Both emotional processing and social cognition impairments have been previously reported in the behavioral variant of FTD (bvFTD) and also in other vers...

Successful human social interaction depends on our capacity to understand other people's mental states and to anticipate how they will react to our actions. Despite its importance to the human condition, the exact mechanisms underlying our ability to understand another's actions, feelings, and thoughts are still a matter of conjecture. Here, we consider this problem from philosophical, psycholo...

In people with psychiatric disorders, particularly those suffering from schizophrenia and related illnesses, pronounced difficulties in social interactions are a key manifestation. These difficulties can be partly explained by impairments in social cognition, defined as the ability to understand oneself and others in the social world, which includes abilities such as emotion recognition, theory...

BACKGROUND This review integrates neuroimaging studies of 2 domains of social cognition--emotion comprehension and theory of mind (ToM)--in patients with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. The influence of key clinical and method variables on patterns of neural activation during social cognitive processing is also examined. METHODS Studies were identified using PsycINFO and PubMe...

CONTEXT Despite a demand for educational expertise in medical universities, little is known of the roles of medical educators and the sustainability of academic careers in medical education. We examined the experiences and career paths of medical educators from diverse professional backgrounds seeking to establish, maintain and strengthen their careers in medical schools. METHODS Semi-structu...

Schizophrenia is associated with poor quality of life (QOL). Whereas the effects of neurocognitive deficits and psychopathology on QOL of schizophrenia patients have recently been elucidated, little is known about social cognitive deficits in this regard. This study investigated the influence of social cognition on QOL in schizophrenia. A sample of 1032 patients, 1011 of their siblings, and 552...

This study examines two questions concerning the impact of women’s and men’s career referents, the people they see as having similar careers, on expected career achievement. First, what is the relative effect of similar-gender and standard-setting career referents on individuals’ expected career achievement? Second, what happens to expected career achievement when women and men select standard-...

In this research topic, we showcase state-of-the-art research on the sources and meaning of variability and individual differences in early social perception and cognition. These papers demonstrate that such variability contributes to our understanding of early development, requires specific methodological toolboxes and skill sets to expand our developmental inventory, and relates to important ...

This study evaluated the longitudinal stability and functional correlates of social cognition during the early course of schizophrenia. Fifty-five first-episode schizophrenia patients completed baseline and 12-month follow-up assessments of 3 key domains of social cognition (emotional processing, theory of mind, and social/relationship perception), as well as clinical ratings of real-world func...