Social cognition in patients with schizophrenia

The authors are dealing with the topic of social cognition and its deficits in patients with schizophrenia. In the introduction they define social cognition and describe its domains that constitute two broad factors, socio-cognitive abilities and socio-cognitive biases. For each domain of social cognition they quantify the severity of deficit, its relationship to clinical characteristics of the disorder, symptomatology and neurocognition. In the conclusion the authors describe the relationships between social cognition, neurocognition and functional outcome. According to the current empirical evidence, social cognition acts as a mediator of relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome. Ability to process properly social stimuli is associated with better every day functioning of patients and thus should represent a potential target for further interventions.