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J Autism Dev Disord (2014) 44:18861896 DOI 10.1007/s10803-014-2061-6
ORIGINAL PAPER
Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC): Spanish Validation
G. Lahera L. Boada E. Pousa I. Mirapeix
G. Morn-Nozaleda L. Marinas L. Gisbert
M. Pamis M. Parellada
Published online: 13 February 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract We present the Spanish validation of the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition instrument (MASC-SP). We recruited 22 adolescents and young adults with Asperger syndrome and 26 participants with typical development. The MASC-SP and three other social cognition instruments (Ekman Pictures of Facial Affect test, Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, and Happs Strange Stories) were administered to both groups. Individuals with Asperger syndrome had signicantly lower scores in all measures of social cognition. The MASC-SP showed strong correlations with all three measures and relative independence of general cognitive functions. Internal consistency was optimal (0.86) and the testretest was good. The MASC-SP is an ecologically valid and
useful tool for assessing social cognition in the Spanish population.
Keywords Social cognition Theory of mind Autism
Asperger syndrome MASC
Introduction
Social cognition is the ability to correctly process social information to infer mental states (emotions, knowledge, beliefs and intentions), both our own and those of other people, in order to predict others behavior and act accordingly. This ability plays a fundamental role in our evolutionary development as human beings, enabling us to adapt to an increasingly complex social world. The extensive terminology associated with this concept is taken from diverse theoretical approaches, such as theory of mind (ToM), mentalization, mind reading, folk psychology, and intuitive psychology (Happ 1994a).
The ToM concept was rst introduced in 1978 by the ethologists Premack and Woodruff in their studies with nonhuman primates. It was developed with important contributions from the cognitive ethology, developmental psychology, and human psycholinguistics literature on pre-verbal social understanding (Meltzoff and Moore 1977; Trevarthen 1979; Wimmer and Perner 1983; Perner and Wimmer 1985; Dennet 1987). After the pioneering work in children with autism by the psychologists Baron-Cohen et al. (1985), the analysis of the acquisition of mentalistic abilities reached its most prosperous period, and numerous published studies demonstrated the inability of persons with autism to attribute mental states to others (Perner et al. 1989; Happ 1994b;...