Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) Study

This is a multi-site, multiple-PI project funded by the National Institute of Mental Health aimed at improving the assessment of social cognition for treatment outcome trials in schizophrenia. Using an experienced team of collaborators, we are using proven methods of consensus development to identify the best existing instruments, evaluate their usefulness, and modify them as needed to improve their utility as outcome measures.

IN THIS STUDY OUR GOAL IS TO IDENTIFY AND IMPROVE THE BEST EXISTING MEASURES OF SOCIAL COGNITION SO THAT THEY CAN BE SUITABLY APPLIED IN LARGE-SCALE TREATMENT STUDIES.

Collaborators

Philip Harvey, PhD, University of Miami
David Penn, PhD, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Study Basics

This is a two-visit study. Each visit will take approximately 4-5 hours, and compensation for each visit is $60, plus $5 to cover travel expenses. During the visits, participants are asked to complete several tasks such as recognizing emotions and answering questions about the people in some videos.

Additional Study Information

Schizophrenia is a complex brain disorder that includes significant impairments in the ability to function in everyday settings. These impairments are clearly related to social cognitive deficits. Empirically based and sound instrumentation is key to assessing the outcomes of interventions that aim to improve social cognitive impairments. In this study, our goal is to identify and improve the best existing measures of social cognition so that they can be suitably applied in large-scale treatment studies. This project will develop consensus on the critical elements of social cognition, identify the best existing measures of social cognition, collect new data to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of these measures, modify them to optimize their utility, and collect additional data to determine the psychometric properties of the final measures based on a large and diverse sample, while focusing continuously on real-world functional outcomes and the role of social cognition for the prediction of real-world functioning.

If you are interested in volunteering for one of our studies, please fill out our form and provide us with some basic information.

Relevant Publications

• Klein, H. S., Springfield, C. R., Bass, E.†, Ludwig, K., Penn, D. L., Harvey, P. D., & Pinkham, A. E. (2020). Measuring mentalizing: A comparison of scoring methods for the Hinting Task. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, e1827.

Hajdúk, M., Harvey, P. D., Penn, D. L., & Pinkham, A. E. (2018). Social cognitive impairments in individuals with schizophrenia vary in severity. Journal of psychiatric research, 104, 65-71.

Pinkham, A. E., Harvey, P. D., & Penn, D. L. (2018). Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE): Results of the final validation study. Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Ludwig, K., Pinkham, A. E., Harvey, P. D., Kelsven, S., & Penn, D. L. (2017). Social cognition psychometric evaluation (SCOPE) in people with early psychosis. Schizophrenia Research.

Pinkham, A. E., Penn, D. L., Green, M. F., & Harvey, P. D. (2016). Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE): Results of the initial psychometric study. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 42, 494-504.

Buck, B. E., Pinkham, A. E., Harvey, P. D., & Penn, D. L. (2016). Revisiting the validity of measures of social cognitive bias in schizophrenia: Additional results from the Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) study. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55, 441-454.Pinkham, A. E., Penn, D. L., Green, M. F., Buck, B., Healey, K., & Harvey, P. D. (2014). The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation study: Results of the expert survey and RAND panel. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 40, 813-823.