Reading the Mind in Films Task (RMF)
FREE for use with an Inquisit Lab or Inquisit Web license.Background
The 'Reading the Mind in Films' (RMF) Task is a behavioral assessment tool designed by Ofer Golan and Simon Baron-Cohen in 2006 to measure people's abilities to recognize internal mental states, such as thoughts, feelings, intentions and emotions in others. The test has high ecological validity by using short movies that mimic social interactions more accurately than static imagery. It focuses on complex emotions such as 'awkward' rather than on basic ones, e.g. 'sadness'. Separate tests are provided for adults and children.
The RMF has been shown to be highly sensitive to even subtle social cognitive deficits in complex emotion recognition.
Task Procedure
The participant is asked to watch 22 short movies depicting a variety of social interactions. For each movie, the participant is told one question to answer at the very end of the movie by selecting the most appropriate out of 4 response buttons. The participant knows the question as well as the possible responses up front. The participant receives no performance feedback.
What it Measures
The RMF is an assessment tool of complex emotion recognition in adults and children.
Psychological domains
- Theory-of-Mind (ToM): The ability to understand internal mental states of other people
- Emotion Recognition: The ability to recognize specific emotions in others
- Multimodal Social Perception: The ability to integrate pieces of social information based on a variety of sources such as visual and auditory cues
Main Performance Metrics
- Number of Correct Responses: Accuracy of complex emotion recognition
Psychiatric Conditions
RMF Performance tends to be impaired in patients with the following conditions:
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Dementia
Available Test Variations
Adult version of the Reading the Mind in Films Task in which participants attempt to infer the emotions of actors based on facial expressions and dramatic context (Golan et al - 2006).
Child version of the Reading the Mind in Films Task in which participants attempt to infer the emotions of actors based on facial expressions and dramatic context (Golan et al - 2006).
References
Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Reading the Mind in Films Task (RMF).
O. Golan, S. Baron-Cohen, J.J. Hill and Y. Golan, (2006) The 'Reading the Mind in Films' Task: complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions Social Neuroscience,1 (2), 111-123.
Golan, Ofer, Baron-Cohen, Simon, & Golan, Yael. (2008). The ‘Reading the Mind in Films’ Task [Child Version]: Complex Emotion and Mental State Recognition in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(8), 1534-1541.