TASIT-R: The Awareness of

Social Inference Test Revised

Skye McDonald, Sharon

Flanagan & Jennifer Rollins

Pearson Assessment

2010

Why TASIT Was Developed

Social skills deficits are common in many clinical groups, e.g. autism, traumatic brain injury, learning disabilities

Social skills comprise Expression (behaviour)

Perception

There are few tools available that measure perception

What Is Social Perception?

Social perception is the ability to read selected social cues in order to make judgements about the behaviour, attitudes and emotions of others (McFall, 1982)

Social cues include Facial expression and tone of voice

Gesture and “body language”

Contextual information

Knowledge of the world

Why Does Social Perception

Matter?

Verbal messages alone are insufficient to convey meaning

A single utterance e.g. “Thankyou!” may be meant

Sincerely to end an encounter

As a request for further assistance

As a sarcastic insult

Nonverbal cues determine this meaning

Failure to read these = Failure of communication

TASIT Comprises Three Parts:

PART 1: Emotion Evaluation Test

PART 2: Test of Social Inference -

Minimal

PART 3: Test of Social Inference -

Enriched

Each with parallel forms

PART 1: EET

Emotion Evaluation Test

EET is an ecologically valid test of emotion recognition

There are 28 videoed vignettes of professional actors enacting ambiguous scripts representing 7 basic emotions

These stimuli: Are dynamic

Portray naturalistic, complex expressions

Provide intonation and gestural cues

PART 1: EET

Response format

Respondents choose the perceived emotion

from the following descriptors: Happy

Surprised

Sad

Angry

Anxious

Revolted

Neutral

PART 1: EET

Normative Data

134 normal adults aged 14-60

88 tested on Form A

46 tested on Form B

Normal speakers achieved high scores on both forms of the EET

Form A: 24.9 (Maximum = 28)

Form B: 24.2 (Maximum = 28)

PART 1: EET

Validity Study

Traumatic brain injury is known to impair emotion recognition

12 adults with severe traumatic brain injury were compared to 12 matched control speakers on the EET

The TBI group were significantly worse than controls, especially on fear and neutral items.

PART 1: EET

Types of Emotion

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

happy

surprised

neutral

sadangry

anxious

revolted

Normalspeakers

TraumaticBrainInjurySpeakers

PART 2: SI-M

Social Inference – Minimal

SI-M examines understanding of conversational meanings that are determined by paralinguistic cues (facial expression, tone of voice, gesture etc)

SI-M comprises 15 videoed vignettes of everyday conversational exchanges

10 vignettes use neutral scripts such as the following:

PART 2: SI-M

Example of Neutral Script

Ruth: Great movie, wasn’t it?

Michael: Oh yeah, great.

Ruth: I thought it was terrific I was on the

edge of my seat.

Michael: Oh me too, on the edge of my seat.

Ruth: Weren’t you surprised by the ending?

Michael: Oh yeah, the ending was a huge surprise.

PART 2: SI- M

Neutral Scripts

These scripts are enacted by professional

actors to represent either

Sincere exchanges (5 examples)

Sarcastic exchanges (5 examples)

PART 2: SI – M

Paradoxical Scripts

In addition there are 5 examples of paradoxical

scripts e.g.

Gary: Are you sure you’ve got your passport?

Keith: (sarcastically) Oh, yes, I tore it up and threw it

away.

Gary: Good, that’s OK then.

These are nonsensical unless it is recognised

that one speakers is sarcastic

PART 2: SI-M

Comprehension Probes

Comprehension is assessed via 4 questions for each vignette.

These cover 4 facets of understanding, i.e. the speakers’ Beliefs (what s/he knows)

Meaning (what s/he means by what is said)

Intentions (what s/he intends to do: to insult, to reassure etc)

Feelings (what s/he feels)

PART 2: SI-M

Normative Data

171 Normal speakers aged 14-50 took part

98 viewed Form A

73 viewed Form B

They achieved generally high scores on each

form.

54 for Form A (maximum = 60)

53 for Form B (maximum = 60)

PART 2: SI-M

Validity Study

Traumatic Brain Injury rarely causes language disturbances but can impair the ability to understand conversational inference

12 speakers with severe TBI were compared to 12 normal speakers

As predicted, the TBI group performed normally on sincere exchanges but were poor on sarcastic exchanges

PART 2: SI-M

Sincere vs Sarcastic Exchanges

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

SINCERE SARCASTIC

NBD Speakers

TBI Speakers

PART 3: SI-E

Social Inference – Enriched

SI-E assesses the ability to use contextual knowledge, i.e. visual and verbal information to derive meaning

SI-E comprises 16 videoed vignettes of everyday exchanges

In each of these there is a literally untrue comment.

PART 3: SI-E

Literally untrue scripts

These comments: e.g.

“Yes Cal has finished his dinner!” (when he has not)

“No of course you don’t look fat” (when he does)

are enacted in one of two ways:

1. As sarcasm meant to amplify the truth

2. As a lie meant to conceal or minimise the truth

PART 3: SI-E

Contextual cues

SI-E provides two sources of non-verbal cues to determine meaning

Paralinguistic features (like Part 2)

Contextual cues - Visual edit indicating the true state of affairs

e.g. a view of Cal’s still full dinner plate

- Prologue that reveals the speaker’s true thoughts

e.g. Ruth confiding to a third person that Garry has put on weight

PART 3: SI-E

Comprehension Probes

4 probes are used to assess comprehension of

each vignette covering the same facets of

understanding as PART 2, I.e speaker

Beliefs

Meanings

Intentions

Feelings

PART 3: SI-E

Normative Study

186 normal speakers aged 14-50 took part

123 viewed Form A

63 viewed Form B

They achieved generally high scores on both forms

Form A: 55.6 (maximum of 60)

Form B; 55.1 (maximum of 60)

PART 3: SI-E

Validity Study

12 adults with severe traumatic brain

injury were compared to 12 matched

control speakers on the SI-E

The TBI speakers were poorer than

normal speakers on sarcasm but not lies

PART 3: SI-E

Sarcasm Versus Lies

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

SARCASM LIES

TBI speakers

Normal speakers

Additional studies of TASIT:

Reliability and construct validity

Reliability (32-38 adults with TBI) Test-retest reliability ranged from 0.74 to 0.88.

Alternate forms reliability ranged from 0.62-0.83.

Validity (up to116 people with TBI) TASIT was associated with

face perception,

information processing speed

working memory.

Socially relevant new learning and executive tasks were significantly associated with TASIT performance

Non-social tasks showed little association.

Ekman photos and theory of mind stories were also associated.

McDonald, Bornhofen, Shum, Long,

Saunders & Neulinger (2006)

Additional Studies using TASIT

with TBI

Poor TASIT performance predicts poor social interaction skills (McDonald et al, 2003)

Poor emotion recognition (EET) is associated with reduced communicative competence on relative report (Watts & Douglas, 2006)

A study of 35 people with TBI confirmed problems on TASIT following TBI and examined relations between emotion, mentalising and conversational understanding (McDonald & Flanagan, 2004)

There are clear differences in the ability to recognise emotion from dynamic and static visual displays as well as voice only (McDonald & Saunders, 2005).

Studies using TASIT with other

populations

TASIT performance is indicative of frontotemporal dementia (Kipps et al, 2009)

In a large group of people with differing forms of dementia only those with semantic dementia had particular difficulty with sarcasm (Rankin et al, 2009)

Right hemisphere pathology appears to disrupt performance on TASIT especially (Fournier et al, 2008)

People with schizophrenia are more impaired than people with FTD (Kosmidos et al, 2008)

Uses of TASIT

TASIT appears to be sensitive to a range

of deficits in social perception

It can be used to assess social perception

It can also be used to treat such deficits

Treatment Applications

Common scripts on Form A and B of TASIT denote contrasting meanings

sad versus angry, etc

sarcastic versus sincere

lie versus sarcastic

These can be used to help clients appreciate the importance of contextual cues

Treatment Applications

The audio channel can be muted or the

visual channel obscured to assist clients

concentrate on information from one

channel alone

Contact Details

For purchasing:

Pearson Assessment http://pearsonassess.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-

us/Productdetail.htm?Pid=015-8055-

063&Mode=summary

Contact Details

For information regarding research

Prof Skye McDonald

School of Psychology,

University of New South Wales

Sydney 2052,

NSW, AUSTRALIA

Phone: +61 (2) 93853029

Fax: +61 (2) 93853641

Email: s.mcdonald@unsw.edu.au

References

McDonald, S., Flanagan, S., Rollins, J. & Kinch, J. (2003) TASIT: A New Clinical Tool for Assessing Social Perception after traumatic brain injury Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 18, 219-238.

McDonald, S., & Flanagan, S. (2004) Social perception deficits after Traumatic Brain Injury: The interaction between emotion recognition, mentalising ability and social communication. Neuropsychology 18, 572-579.

McDonald, S., Flanagan, Martin, I. & Saunders, C. (2004) The ecological validity of TASIT: A test of social perception, Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 14, 205-302.

McDonald, S., Saunders, C. (2005) Differential impairment in recognition of emotion from still, dynamic and multi-modal displays in people with severe TBI. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 11, 392-399.

McDonald, S., Bornhofen, C., Shum, D., Long, E. Saunders, C., Neulinger, K.

(2006) Reliability and validity of ‘The Awareness of Social Inference Test’

(TASIT): A clinical test of social perception. Disability and Rehabilitation, 28,

1529-1542.

Watts, A.J., & Douglas, J.M. (2006). Interpreting facial expression and

communication competence following severe traumatic brain injury. Aphasiology,

20(8), 707-722.

References continued

Rankin, K., Salazar, A., Goorno-Tempini, M.L., Sollberger, M., Wilson, S.M.,

Pavlic, D., Stanley, C.M., Glenn, S., Weiner, M.W., Miller, B.L. (2009) Detecting

sarcasm from paralinguistic cues: Anatomic and cognitive correlates in

neurodegenerative disease. Neuroiamge, 47, 2005-2015.

Fournier, N.M., Calverley, K.L., Wagner, J.P., Poock, J.L., & Crossley, M. (2008).

Impaired social cognition 30 years after hemispherectomy for intractable epilepsy:

The importance of the right hemisphere in complex social functioning. Epilepsy &

Behavior, 12, 460-471.

Kipps, C.M., Nestor, P.J., Acosta-Cabronero, J., Arnold, R., & Hodges, J.R. (2009).

Understanding social dysfunction in the behavioural variant of frontotemporal

dementia:the role of emotion and sarcasm processing. Brain.

Kosmidis, M.H., Eleni, A., P., B.V., Maria, G., & Panayiotis, I. (2008). Studying

social cognition in patients with schizophrenia and patients with frontotemporal

dementia: Theory of mind and the perception of sarcasm. Behavioural Neurology,

19(Print), 65-69.

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