The Reading the Mind in the Eyes task (RMET; Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001) is commonly used to assess theory of mind abilities in adults. In the task, participants pair one of four mental state descriptors with a picture of the eye region of a face. The items have varying emotional valence, and nearly 100 studies have examined whether performance on this task varies with item valence. However, efforts to address this question have been hampered by cross-study inconsistencies in how item valence is assessed. Thus, the goal of this study was to establish reference ratings for the valence of RMET items. In Study 1, we recorded valence ratings for each RMET item with a large sample of raters (n = 164). We illustrated how valence categories are essentially arbitrary and largely influenced by sample size. In addition, valence ratings were continuously distributed, further questioning the validity of imposing categorical distinctions. In Study 2, we used an archival dataset to demonstrate how the different categorization schemes resulted in conflicting conclusions about the association between item valence and RMET performance. However, when we examined the association between item valence and performance in a continuous manner, a clear U-shaped pattern emerged: Items that had more extreme valence ratings (negative or positive) were associated with better performance than items with more neutral ratings. We conclude that using the item valence ratings we report, and treating item valence as a continuous rather than categorical predictor, will help bring consistency to the study of the association between item valence and performance in the RMET. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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读心目中的价的任务。

阅读眼睛中的思维任务（RMET； Baron-Cohen，Wheelwright，Hill，Raste和Plumb，2001）通常用于评估成人的心理能力理论。在任务中，参与者将四个心理状态描述符之一与脸部眼睛区域的图片配对。这些物品的情绪化合价各不相同，近100项研究检查了此任务的绩效是否随项目化合价而异。但是，由于如何评估项目价格的跨研究不一致，阻碍了解决该问题的努力。因此，本研究的目的是为RMET项目的价建立参考等级。在研究1中，我们用大量评估者（n = 164）记录了每个RMET项目的化合价。我们说明了价类别实际上是任意的，并在很大程度上受样本量的影响。此外，价数等级连续分布，进一步质疑强加分类区别的有效性。在研究2中，我们使用档案数据集来说明不同的分类方案如何导致关于项目价与RMET性能之间关联的结论相互矛盾。但是，当我们以连续的方式检查商品价格与性能之间的关联时，出现了清晰的U形模式：极端价数（负数或正数）更高的商品比具有中性等级的商品具有更好的性能。我们得出的结论是，使用我们报告的项目效价等级，并将项目效价视为连续而非分类预测指标，将有助于为RMET中项目效价与绩效之间的关联研究带来一致性。