Methods of Assessing the Mental State of the Others by the Expression of the Eyes of Adolescents in Health and Schizophrenia

We describe a study involving 72 mentally healthy adolescents (13-17 years), 24 young men (15 ± 1,4 years), 48 women (15 ± 1,4 years) and 8 children (13-18 years), 6 boys (15 ± 1,9 years) and 2 women (16 ± 2,1 years) who had undergone previous episode of schizophrenia (F 20, ICD-10) and at the time of the survey being in remission. We tested the hypotheses about differences in the development of the theory of mind in different groups of adolescents. The study was conducted using test of "Reading the mental state of the other by his gaze" and a test of social intelligence by Gilford and Sullivan. It was found that the healthy adolescents build better mental models of the other person than adolescents with schizophrenia (U = 102, p≤0,05). In the group of mentally healthy women, we found a statistically significant relationship between the understanding of mind by the gaze and social intelligence (r = 0,6; p = 0.01). The used test proved to be a representative tool for the study of mind in different groups of adolescents.

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