These pilot results focus on the re

These pilot results focus on the relation of the ACS-SP subtest with measures of social cognition in a mixed sample. To our knowledge, these social measures and clinical groups have not been previously studied in this manner and, although there is growing interest, few previous reports describe the relationships among social cognition measures or abilities across populations. Overall, the results of the first aim suggest adequate convergent and discriminant validity of the ACS-SP to other measures of social cognition as evidenced by significant positive, moderate correlations to the Ekman60, the Eyes, and the WMS-Faces and the lack of significant relation to DS Coding. Secondary analyses explored the relationships exhibited by groups across social measures, which also provide further evidence of convergence. As expected, clinical groups obtained lower scores compared to the CTRL group overall, and some differences reached statistically significant levels. Unexpectedly, the ASP and SCZ groups performed similarly on most measures except SP Pairs. Limited power may have affected the results.

Convergent validity, as indicated by greatest amount of shared variance, was found among the ACS-SP subscales and the Ekman60, WMS-Faces, and the Eyes, which suggests similarities among these measures. First, the ACS-SP subtests consistently use pictures of faces as stimuli, similar to the related measures. As such, the shared variance may relate to the processing of facial stimuli resembled in each of these measures. Second, stronger relations were found between ACS-SP and two measures of emotional processing, the Ekman60, and the Eyes tests. These measures direct participants to label or recognize an emotion, such as sad or desiring. Thus the relationship between these measures suggests that they are tapping similar functions of deriving emotional information from facial cues. Since these correlations were moderate, this suggests that the ACS-SP also taps into areas that these social cognition measures do not.

Alternatively, the relation of some of these measures may be a reflection of similar processing regardless of the type of stimuli or task (Golan, Baron-Cohen, Hill, & Rutherford, 2007). Previous studies have found significant correlations on emotion recognition tests that are presented in either a visual or an auditory format (Banziger et al., 2009; Golan et al., 2007; Philip et al., 2010; Poole, Tobias, & Vinogradov, 2000). However, deficits in prosody and facial expression have also been reported to occur independently (Bowers, Bauer, & Heilman, 1993). As such, systematic associations between facial and vocal affect recognition tasks are not uniformly reported, which may relate to the heterogeneity of the social cognition tasks used(Hooker & Park, 2002).

While the ACS-SP related to most social cognitive measures studied, the subscales lacked
strong correlations with the MSCEIT-ME or Triangles. This may indicate that these tasks are tapping into domains that are related to, but distinct from, the constructs of the ACS-SP. As the MSCEIT-ME was designed to assess the understanding and modulation of emotions, and Triangles was designed to measure mentalizing or ToM, these tasks involve perception of social information, perhaps, unlike the social perception and emotion identification constructs tapped by the ACS-SP. The MSCEIT-ME and Triangles measures also use stimuli as text and video in contrast to the predominant use of pictures in the ACS-SP. Along those lines, the MSCEIT-ME and the Triangles task appear to involve language to a greater degree, both in the task presentation and task-related response; previous studies have reported the MSCEIT-ME has a relationship with verbal abilities (Bell et al., 2010; Wexler, Zito, Greig, & Bell, 2009). In conclusion, the lack of significant shared variance indicates that ACS-SP is tapping into different social constructs than either of these measures although future research will be necessary to further explore these differences at a cognitive level.

Group results were informative to the convergence of social cognition measures as well as the performances of the three groups. As expected, CTRLs outperformed ASP and SCZ on the Eyes, Ekman 60, and SP Prosody tests and either group on the WMS-Faces and SP Pairs.
Statistical differences were not found on the other four measures. Yet differences between the psychiatric groups and the CTRLs appear to be limited by the lack of power such as indicated by the moderate and large effect sizes of the SP Total, SP Affect Naming, and MSCEIT-ME scores. The Triangles test was the only measure that did not evidence differences across groups.

Differences between ASP and SCZ groups did not appear as often. The only statistical finding between these groups was on SP Pairs indicating that the SCZ group performed worse on a higher order social linguistic test (e.g., sarcasm). One reason for the lack of findings is the high functioning level of our samples. Compared to data from the ACS-SP manual (see also Holdnack, Goldstein, & Drozdick, 2011), the average scaled scores achieved by our ASP group were slightly higher, but comparable, while our SCZ group scored much higher than the SCZ group presented in the test manual. Furthermore, we should also note that the mean FSIQ of our ASP subjects was much higher than the ACS sample (i.e., 113.2 vs. 95.8). Overall and compared to other measures,the ACS-SP adequately differentiated CTRLs from the psychiatric groups and suggested evidence for differentiating among groups known to have social cognition deficits.

Limitations to this study may limit the generalizability of the findings. First, our relatively small sample sizes restricted the power for the statistical analyses. Furthermore, the age differences among the groups may have influenced the results. Second, data were missing for some of the analyses, which may have affected the magnitude of correlations. A third concern, present in social cognition research, is the potential association with or influence of general intelligence. This is a complex issue due to the strong relationships between measures of “g” and numerous other aspects of cognition and behavior. It has been noted that IQ and developmental disorders
involving cognition are inextricably related (Dennis et al., 2009), thus limiting our ability to separate these two core constructs in human cognition.

Future research will be necessary to further explore the relationships among social perception measures and variations in performance across groups. The need for psychometrically sound measures for each population with social deficits necessitates further investigation, as some measures may be better suited for finding deficits in certain groups. Consolidating clinical and research efforts to explain the similarities and differences among populations with social deficits may also prove to be beneficial in future investigations.

The current study suggests some advantages of the ACS-SP in comparison to other measures
of social perception and cognition. Results provide evidence for convergent and discriminant validity of the ACS-SP with other measures of social cognition and perception. The ACS-SP is a published, standardized, and well-normed set of subtests that appears to measure similar constructs as existing and more experimental social cognition measures. In addition, the manual provides information across special populations known to have social cognitive deficits and allows for ACS-SP scores be contrasted to WAIS-IV IQ scores. Thus the ACS-SP appears to have promise as a packaged tool for exploring social cognition in these and other populations.

Results (Indonesian) 1:

Hasil percontohan ini berfokus pada hubungan ACS-SP subtest dengan langkah-langkah dari kognisi sosial dalam sampel campuran. Untuk pengetahuan kita, upaya-upaya sosial dan kelompok-kelompok klinis ini tidak telah sebelumnya dipelajari dengan cara ini dan, meskipun ada minat, beberapa laporan sebelumnya menggambarkan hubungan antara langkah-langkah kognisi sosial atau kemampuan di seluruh populasi. Secara keseluruhan, hasil tujuan pertama menyarankan memadai konvergen dan diskriminan validitas ACS-SP untuk ukuran-ukuran kognisi sosial sebagaimana dibuktikan oleh korelasi signifikan positif, moderat untuk Ekman60, mata, dan WMS-wajah dan kurangnya signifikan hubungan DS Coding. Analisis sekunder mengeksplorasi hubungan yang dipamerkan oleh kelompok-kelompok di seluruh tindakan sosial, yang juga menyediakan lebih lanjut bukti konvergensi. Seperti yang diharapkan, kelompok-kelompok klinis memperoleh nilai lebih rendah dibandingkan dengan grup CTRL secara keseluruhan, dan beberapa perbedaan mencapai tingkat yang signifikan secara statistik. Tiba-tiba, kumpulan ASP dan SCZ dilakukan sama pada sebagian besar langkah kecuali SP pasang. Daya terbatas telah mempengaruhi hasil.Convergent validity, as indicated by greatest amount of shared variance, was found among the ACS-SP subscales and the Ekman60, WMS-Faces, and the Eyes, which suggests similarities among these measures. First, the ACS-SP subtests consistently use pictures of faces as stimuli, similar to the related measures. As such, the shared variance may relate to the processing of facial stimuli resembled in each of these measures. Second, stronger relations were found between ACS-SP and two measures of emotional processing, the Ekman60, and the Eyes tests. These measures direct participants to label or recognize an emotion, such as sad or desiring. Thus the relationship between these measures suggests that they are tapping similar functions of deriving emotional information from facial cues. Since these correlations were moderate, this suggests that the ACS-SP also taps into areas that these social cognition measures do not.Alternatively, the relation of some of these measures may be a reflection of similar processing regardless of the type of stimuli or task (Golan, Baron-Cohen, Hill, & Rutherford, 2007). Previous studies have found significant correlations on emotion recognition tests that are presented in either a visual or an auditory format (Banziger et al., 2009; Golan et al., 2007; Philip et al., 2010; Poole, Tobias, & Vinogradov, 2000). However, deficits in prosody and facial expression have also been reported to occur independently (Bowers, Bauer, & Heilman, 1993). As such, systematic associations between facial and vocal affect recognition tasks are not uniformly reported, which may relate to the heterogeneity of the social cognition tasks used(Hooker & Park, 2002).While the ACS-SP related to most social cognitive measures studied, the subscales lackedstrong correlations with the MSCEIT-ME or Triangles. This may indicate that these tasks are tapping into domains that are related to, but distinct from, the constructs of the ACS-SP. As the MSCEIT-ME was designed to assess the understanding and modulation of emotions, and Triangles was designed to measure mentalizing or ToM, these tasks involve perception of social information, perhaps, unlike the social perception and emotion identification constructs tapped by the ACS-SP. The MSCEIT-ME and Triangles measures also use stimuli as text and video in contrast to the predominant use of pictures in the ACS-SP. Along those lines, the MSCEIT-ME and the Triangles task appear to involve language to a greater degree, both in the task presentation and task-related response; previous studies have reported the MSCEIT-ME has a relationship with verbal abilities (Bell et al., 2010; Wexler, Zito, Greig, & Bell, 2009). In conclusion, the lack of significant shared variance indicates that ACS-SP is tapping into different social constructs than either of these measures although future research will be necessary to further explore these differences at a cognitive level. Group results were informative to the convergence of social cognition measures as well as the performances of the three groups. As expected, CTRLs outperformed ASP and SCZ on the Eyes, Ekman 60, and SP Prosody tests and either group on the WMS-Faces and SP Pairs.Statistical differences were not found on the other four measures. Yet differences between the psychiatric groups and the CTRLs appear to be limited by the lack of power such as indicated by the moderate and large effect sizes of the SP Total, SP Affect Naming, and MSCEIT-ME scores. The Triangles test was the only measure that did not evidence differences across groups.Differences between ASP and SCZ groups did not appear as often. The only statistical finding between these groups was on SP Pairs indicating that the SCZ group performed worse on a higher order social linguistic test (e.g., sarcasm). One reason for the lack of findings is the high functioning level of our samples. Compared to data from the ACS-SP manual (see also Holdnack, Goldstein, & Drozdick, 2011), the average scaled scores achieved by our ASP group were slightly higher, but comparable, while our SCZ group scored much higher than the SCZ group presented in the test manual. Furthermore, we should also note that the mean FSIQ of our ASP subjects was much higher than the ACS sample (i.e., 113.2 vs. 95.8). Overall and compared to other measures,the ACS-SP adequately differentiated CTRLs from the psychiatric groups and suggested evidence for differentiating among groups known to have social cognition deficits.Keterbatasan untuk studi ini mungkin membatasi generalizability temuan. Pertama, ukuran relatif kecil sampel kami dibatasi kekuatan untuk analisis statistik. Selanjutnya, perbedaan usia antara kelompok-kelompok telah mempengaruhi hasil. Kedua, data yang hilang untuk beberapa analisis, yang mungkin telah mempengaruhi besarnya korelasi. Ketiga keprihatinan, hadir dalam kognisi sosial penelitian, adalah asosiasi dengan potensi atau pengaruh kecerdasan umum. Ini adalah masalah yang kompleks karena hubungan kuat antara ukuran "g" dan banyak aspek lain dari kognisi dan perilaku. Telah dicatat bahwa IQ dan gangguan perkembanganmelibatkan kognisi erat terkait (Dennis et al., 2009), dengan demikian membatasi kemampuan kita untuk memisahkan dua inti ini konstruksi dalam kognisi manusia.Penelitian di masa datang akan diperlukan untuk lebih menjelajahi hubungan antara langkah-langkah persepsi sosial dan variasi dalam kinerja di seluruh grup. Perlunya langkah-langkah psychometrically suara untuk setiap penduduk dengan defisit sosial memerlukan lebih lanjut investigasi, seperti beberapa tindakan mungkin akan lebih cocok untuk menemukan defisit dalam kelompok-kelompok tertentu. Mengkonsolidasikan klinis dan penelitian upaya untuk menjelaskan persamaan dan perbedaan antara populasi dengan defisit sosial juga dapat membuktikan yang akan menguntungkan di masa depan penyelidikan.Penelitian ini menunjukkan beberapa keuntungan dari ACS-SP dibandingkan dengan langkah-langkah lainof social perception and cognition. Results provide evidence for convergent and discriminant validity of the ACS-SP with other measures of social cognition and perception. The ACS-SP is a published, standardized, and well-normed set of subtests that appears to measure similar constructs as existing and more experimental social cognition measures. In addition, the manual provides information across special populations known to have social cognitive deficits and allows for ACS-SP scores be contrasted to WAIS-IV IQ scores. Thus the ACS-SP appears to have promise as a packaged tool for exploring social cognition in these and other populations.