Social cognition refers to the mental processes your mind uses to try to understand the thoughts and feelings of other people. Social cognition helps us to understand others and plays an important role in our social behaviour. Some individuals, with conditions such as schizophrenia, experience difficulties with social cognition.

Many of the psychological tasks used to examine social cognition require administration by a trained researcher or psychologist, and rely on unrealistic stimuli, such as cartoon characters. 

The valuable role of volunteers

cTOM (Computerised Theory of Mind) is an app that runs on a tablet – a device most of us are now familiar with, that has no learning curve impeding its use - allowing people to respond to what they are observing using a touch-screen interface. The app also shows videos of actors interacting in a very realistic way. 

cTOM has the potential to allow professionals gain a more accurate and straightforward insight into the social cognition of their patients. For the app to be truly effective, however, it is necessary to establish a baseline for social cognition. To this end, NCI’s SAMI lab is seeking volunteers.

What would I have to do?

You will need to be able to visit NCI’s campus to participate in a number of traditional social cognition tests, as well as testing cTOM on an Apple iPad. The researchers would do their best to be as flexible as possible on the timing of your participation, to fit with your other commitments.

Participants must be aged 18 to 60 and have no previous diagnosis of a neurological, psychiatric, or psychological condition. 

If this is you, and you are interested in volunteering, please contact: socialctom@gmail.com 

More about cTOM

The design of cTOM was a collaboration between Dr David Mothersill and Professor Gary Donohoe, Professor of Psychology at National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG), with code development by Professor Jim Duggan, Conor O’Grady, and Jennifer Murray from NUIG’s School of Computer Science.

Dr Mothersill comments: "Our team here at NCI would really appreciate your time as a volunteer at this stage of testing the sensitivity and/or limits of the cTOM app; ultimately, you will be contributing to future research aimed at better understanding social cognition in groups who struggle with these abilities.”

You can hear more from Dr Mothersill about social cognition in general and cTOM in particular on this podcast episode of Adam Learns Random Stuff.