Led by AICE affiliate Tim Ziermans, this global survey of 52 experts across 20 countries shows that despite the central role of social cognition (SC) in psychiatric and neurological disorders, current assessment practices remain limited and fragmented.

According to researchers, only a handful of tools, mainly facial emotion recognition tasks, are widely used, while key challenges persist:

- Lack of culture-appropriate norms

- Poor psychometric properties

- Limited cross-cultural applicability

- Need for theoretical clarity and harmonized protocols

- Insufficient funding and collaboration

The authors argue that without validated, culturally sensitive, and harmonized SC measures, international clinical trials and real-world clinical practice will continue to face barriers in evaluating treatment effects and understanding functional outcomes. In addition, pioneer Professor Francesca Happé expressed her support in a complementary commentary.

Link to paper