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Executive Functions do not Underlie Performance on the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT) in Healthy Younger and Older Adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2020

R. Asaad Baksh Open the ORCID record for R. Asaad Baksh [Opens in a new window] ,
Tereża Bugeja  and
Sarah E. MacPherson Open the ORCID record for Sarah E. MacPherson [Opens in a new window]
R. Asaad Baksh*
Affiliation:
Centre for Dementia Prevention, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Tereża Bugeja
Affiliation:
Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK
Sarah E. MacPherson
Affiliation:
Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, UK
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests to: Asaad Baksh, Centre for Dementia Prevention, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, 9A Bioquarter, 9 Little France Road, EdinburghEH16 4UX, UK. E-mail: rbaksh@exseed.ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

Objective:

Current measures of social cognition have shown inconsistent findings regarding the effects of executive function (EF) abilities on social cognitive performance in older adults. The psychometric properties of the different social cognition tests may underlie the disproportional overlap with EF abilities. Our aim was to examine the relationship between social cognition and EF abilities using the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT; Baksh, R.A., Abrahams, S., Auyeung, B., & MacPherson, S.E. (2018). The Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT): Examining the effects of age on a new measure of theory of mind and social norm understanding. PloS One, 13(4), e0195818.), a test assessing four different aspects of social cognition: cognitive theory of mind (ToM), affective ToM, interpersonal understanding of social norms, and intrapersonal understanding of social norms.

Method:

We administered the ESCoT, EF measures of inhibition, set shifting, updating, and a measure of processing speed to 30 younger and 31 older adults. We also administered the Visual Perspective Taking task (VPT) as a ToM test thought to be reliant on EF abilities.

Results:

Better performance on cognitive ToM was significantly associated with younger age and slower processing speed. Better performance on affective ToM and ESCoT total score was associated with being younger and female. Better performance on interpersonal understanding of social norms was associated with being younger. EF abilities did not predict performance on any subtest of the ESCoT. In contrast, on the VPT, the relationship between age group and performance was fully or partially mediated by processing speed and updating.

Conclusions:

These findings show that the ESCoT is a valuable measure of different aspects of social cognition and, unlike many established tests of social cognition, performance is not predicted by EF abilities.

Keywords

Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT)Executive functionsAgeingTheory of MindUnderstanding of social norms
Type
Regular Research
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 26 , Issue 5 , May 2020 , pp. 527 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2020

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