Abstract

Objective

Social cognition and executive deficits are frequent in neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Yet, there is a paucity of standardized domain-specific psychometric tools for the assessment of complex decision-making, social cognition (i.e., Theory of Mind), and empathy. To this aim, this study intended at providing normative data in an Italian population sample for the Iowa Gambling Task, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index.

Method

The Iowa Gambling Task, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index were administered to 462 healthy Italian participants aged between 18 and 91 years, considering demographic factors. A confirmatory factor analysis was run to test for unidimensionality. Normative values were derived by means of the Equivalent Scores method.

Results

Education predicted all tests’ scores, age influenced scores at the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, gender predicted empathic abilities only. The three tests did not underpin a unidimensional structure.

Conclusions

The present work provides demographically adjusted Italian normative data for a set of tests assessing real-life decision-making, emotion recognition and empathy, filling a gap within II-level, domain-specific, neuropsychological testing. For the first time, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index is proposed as an adjuvant neuropsychological tool, while the standardization of the Iowa Gambling Task offers a new scoring system for advantageous/disadvantageous choices.

中文翻译：

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读心测试、爱荷华州赌博任务和人际反应指数：意大利人口样本中的规范数据

摘要

客观的

社会认知和执行缺陷在神经和神经精神疾病中很常见。然而，用于评估复杂决策、社会认知（即心智理论）和同理心的标准化特定领域心理测量工具却很少。为此，本研究旨在为爱荷华州赌博任务、眼中读心测试和人际反应指数提供意大利人口样本的规范数据。

方法

考虑到人口统计学因素，对 462 名年龄在 18 至 91 岁之间的健康意大利参与者进行了爱荷华赌博任务、眼中读心测试和人际反应指数。进行验证性因素分析以测试一维性。规范值是通过等效分数法得出的。

结果

教育预测了所有测试的分数，人际反应指数和眼中阅读测试的年龄影响分数，性别仅预测移情能力。这三个测试不支持一维结构。

结论

目前的工作为一组评估现实生活中的决策、情感识别和同理心的测试提供了经过人口统计调整的意大利规范数据，填补了 II 级、特定领域、神经心理学测试中的空白。人际反应指数首次被提出作为辅助神经心理学工具，而爱荷华州赌博任务的标准化为有利/不利的选择提供了一个新的评分系统。