Social cognition, the ability to perceive, interpret, and respond to social information, is widely studied across psychiatric and neurological conditions, yet the field is fragmented. Research in autism, schizophrenia, and related disorders has long relied on measurement approaches that vary widely across studies, often lack psychometric rigor, and rarely account for cultural context. Encountering this problem repeatedly, and recognising that colleagues across neighbouring fields faced the same challenges, led to a collaborative effort to address it systematically. Together with Prof. Amy Pinkham (University of Texas at Dallas) and Michal Hajdúk (Comenius University, Bratislava), and a diverse international group of experts and people with lived experience spanning more than seven countries, we were awarded the 2022 Research Harmonisation Award by the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) to develop a unified, cross-culturally valid approach to social cognitive measurement, which led to two group publications.
The aim for the future is to build further on these findings with national and international partners to work towards improved assessments & norms, and intervention tools that are meaningful and valid across cultures and diagnostic boundaries. For example, within the Dutch Social Cognition consortium, available instruments are shared and evaluated; for the platform 'Advanced Neuropsychological Diagnostics Infrastructure' (ANDI), new norm data is being collected for multivariate normative comparisons, and with collaborators in Hokkaido we are investigating cross-cultural biases in emotion recognition.
Collaborators (main):
- Michal Hajdúk (Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia)
- Dr. Naoki Hashimoto, MD / Dr. Hayato Watanabe / Dr. Atsuhito Toyomaki (Hokkaido University, Japan)
- Prof. dr. Amy Pinkham (University of Texas at Dallas, USA)
- Social cognition consortium Netherlands/Belgium (publication in Dutch)
- Nathalie de Vent (University of Amsterdam / ANDI)