Mindreading From the Eyes Declines With Aging – Evidence From 1,603 Subjects

21Citations
Citations of this article
43Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Social cognition, in particular mindreading, enables the understanding of another individual’s feelings, intentions, desires, and mental states. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) captures the ability to identify mental states from gaze. We investigated RMET accuracy in the context of age and cognition across the whole adult age-range (19–79 years) in a very large population-based sample (N = 1,603) with linear regression models accounting for cognitive abilities, neurological diseases, and psychiatric disorders. Higher age predicted lower RMET performance in women and men, suggesting difficulties to infer mental states from gaze at older age. Effects remained stable when taking other cognitive abilities and psychiatric disorders or neurological diseases into account. Our results show that RMET performance as a measure of social cognition declines with increasing age.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Kynast, J., Quinque, E. M., Polyakova, M., Luck, T., Riedel-Heller, S. G., Baron-Cohen, S., … Schroeter, M. L. (2020). Mindreading From the Eyes Declines With Aging – Evidence From 1,603 Subjects. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.550416

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free