Purpose

The aim of the test is the assessment of social cognition and specifically the ability to correctly perceive social signals/cues, such as paralinguistic elements and contextual information, in order to evaluate and infer the emotions, thoughts, and intentions of others.

Test Analysis

The [PESIT] was developed by Kosmidis et al. (2008), inspired by the Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT). It consists of three parts, each containing videotaped social scenarios:
(1) the Facial Affect Recognition subtest,
(2) the Social Inference–Minimal subtest, and
(3) the Social Inference–Enriched subtest.
Comprehension is evaluated with three questions after each dialogue, which assess the speaker’s emotional state, the meaning of their remarks, their beliefs and intentions, and the message that the listener was believed to have taken from the remarks.

Scoring and Statistical Analysis

Scoring of the [PESIT] is as follows: it provides five subscores corresponding to:
(a) Sincere statements – consisting of the scores from the three videos with sincere scenarios (maximum score: 18),
(b) Sarcasm Part 2 – calculated as the sum of the scores from the three videos with simple sarcasm scenarios,
(c) Paradoxical sarcasm – consisting of the sum of the scores from the four videos with paradoxical sarcasm (maximum score: 24),
(d) Sarcasm Part 3 – reflecting performance on the two videos from Part 3 involving sarcasm (maximum score: 16),
(e) Lies – reflecting performance on the two videos from Part 3 with lies that appear to have no negative impact or are “benign” lies (maximum score: 16).
After the presentation of each scenario, participants are asked to evaluate:
(a) the emotional state of the speaker from among six complex emotions, such as disappointment, satisfaction, or anger,
(b) the meaning of the speaker’s remarks and their beliefs, and
(c) the speaker’s belief about the message the listener took from the remarks.
Higher overall [PESIT] scores at baseline and after 12 months were significantly associated with better work productivity, independent living, and social network outcomes.

Validity

The [PESIT] has adequate psychometric properties as a clinical test of social perception. It is an ecologically valid measure that can be used for the core components of social intelligence (emotion recognition, sarcasm) through videotaped vignettes of everyday situations performed by professional actors.

Reliability

The [PESIT] shows very high internal consistency for the total score, with Cronbach’s alpha = 0.866.

References

Bozikas, V. P., Ntouros, E., Andreou, C., Nazlidou, E. I., Floros, G., Tsoura, E., & Garyfallos, G. (2015). The role of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in the perception of insincere speech in first-episode psychosis. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 37(8), 842–852.
Kosmidis, M. H., Aretouli, E., Bozikas, V. P., Giannakou, M., & Ioannidis, P. (2008). Studying social cognition in patients with schizophrenia and patients with frontotemporal dementia: theory of mind and the perception of sarcasm. Behavioural Neurology, 19(1–2), 65–69.
McDonald, S., Flanagan, S., & Rollins, J. (2002). The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT). Thames Valley Test Company.
McDonald, S., Honan, C., Allen, S. K., El-Helou, R., Kelly, M., Kumfor, F., … & Keage, H. A. (2018). Normal adult and adolescent performance on TASIT-S, a short version of The Assessment of Social Inference Test. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 32(4), 700–719.