Assessment of social judgments and complex mental states in the early phases of psychosis

OBJECTIVES: Social cognition plays an important role in the functioning of individuals with psychosis. In this study, we explored two areas of social cognition not previously investigated early in the course of psychosis. METHOD: Eighty-eight clinical high risk participants, 26 participants diagnosed with schizophrenia for less than 5 years, and 41 non-clinical control participants completed two measures of social cognition. RESULTS: Clinical high risk participants demonstrated biased responses to untrustworthy faces compared to both of the other groups. Early schizophrenia participants performed more poorly on an advanced theory of mind task compared to the clinical high risk and control groups. CONCLUSIONS: There are different patterns of performance on social cognitive tasks in these groups, which require further examination in longitudinal studies.