Affiliations: School of Psychology, Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece | 2nd Psychiatry Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece | 2nd Neurology Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Note: [] Corresponding author: Mary H. Kosmidis, Ph.D., School of
Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Tel.: +30 2310 997 308; Fax: +30 2310 997 384; E-mail: Kosmidis@psy.auth.gr
Abstract: We investigated social cognition and theory of mind in patients with
schizophrenia and in patients with frontotemporal dementia in order to
elucidate the cognitive mechanisms involved in the breakdown of these skills in
psychiatric and neurological patients. Our tasks included videotaped scenarios
of social interactions depicting sincere, sarcastic and paradoxical remarks, as
well as lies. We found impaired performance of the schizophrenia group on all
theory of mind conditions despite their intact understanding of sincere
statements. In contrast, the FTD group performed poorly only when they had to
rely on paralinguistic cues indicating sarcasm or lies, and not on paradoxical
remarks or sarcasm when given additional verbal cues. Our findings suggest
that, while current deficits in social and interpersonal functioning in
patients with FTD may reflect a decrement in previously acquired skills,
similar deficits in patients with schizophrenia may reflect an altogether
inadequately learned process.
Keywords: Social cognition, theory of mind, schizophrenia, frontotemporal dementia
