Cognitive and Affective Theory of Mind in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Parkinson’s Disease: Preliminary Evidence from the Italian Version of the Yoni Task

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study was to explore cognitive and affective dimensions of ToM using the computerized Yoni task in participants with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI=16), early stage of Parkinson’s Disease (PD=14), and healthy controls (HC=18) Results demonstrated that the Yoni task was effective in discriminating between groups in 1^th order cognitive dimension (MCI<PD=HC, p_corr<.05), and in 2^nd order cognitive and affective dimensions (MCI<HC, p_corr <.05), highlighting a reduced ToM performance also in people with PD (MCI<PD<HC, p_corr <.05). Thus, the Yoni task represents a sensitive tool for detecting different dimensions of ToM impairment, across different clinical conditions.

Author contributions

A.M., I.C., D.M., F.R., and F.B conceived and designed the experiments; R.N., F.B., F.R., and M.A. recruited patients; F.R. collected data and conducted the experiments; D.M., F.R., I.C., and F.B. analyzed the data; A.M., I.C., D.M., F.R., F.B., and S.S. interpreted the results; F.R., I.C., D.M., and S.S. wrote the paper.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the participants in the present research and their families for their collaboration. The authors greatly thank Dr. Cristian Ricci for his support in statistical analyses.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the financial contribution of Italian Ministry of Health—Ricerca Corrente 2016-2018.