A large body of research has demonstrated that success in the social world hinges upon our ability to decipher and infer the hidden beliefs, emotions, and intentions of others. This mental state understanding (MSU) results in a number of positive social effects: increased popularity, improved interpersonal rapport, prosocial behavior, and the like.

Conversely, those who struggle with MSU experience a variety of negative effects: few friends, isolation, and the risk for severe psychiatric illness, such as schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The link between social isolation, psychiatric illness, and mortality is a strong one, hence the importance of a reliable assessment tool of our ability to to understand what other people are thinking and feeling.

The National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) recommends a test, called the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task (RMET). Here, participants view 36 black and white photographs, originally selected from magazine articles, of solely the eyes of Caucasian female and male actors. Participants then decide which of four adjectives—such as panicked, incredulous, despondent, or interested—best describes the mental state expressed in the eyes (the correct answer has been generated through consensus ratings).

However, using data from more than 40,000 people, a new study published in Psychological Medicine concludes that the test is deeply flawed.

“It’s biased against the less educated, the less intelligent, and against ethnic and racial minorities,” says lead author David Dodell-Feder, an assistant professor of psychology. “It relies too heavily on a person’s vocabulary, intelligence, and culturally-biased stimuli. That’s particularly problematic because it’s endorsed by the national authority in our field and therefore the most widely-used assessment tool.”

What surprised the researchers most was the difference in the performance of people of some races and certain levels of education, which was as large or even larger than the difference between neurotypical people and people with schizophrenia or autism—two groups that exhibit well-documented, marked, and pervasive social difficulties.

The team, comprised of Rochester’s Dodell-Feder, and Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital’s Kerry Ressler and Laura Germine, studied 40,248 native-speaking or primarily English-speaking people between the ages of 10 to 70. Study participants completed one of five measures on TestMyBrain.org: either the RMET, or a shortened version of RMET, a multiracial emotion identification task, an emotion discrimination task, or a non-social/non-verbal processing speed task of digit symbol matching.

The scientists found that education, race, and ethnicity explained more of the variance in a person’s RMET performance, and that the differences between levels of education, race, and ethnicity were more pronounced for the RMET compared to the other three tasks.

As a result, more highly educated, non-Hispanic, and white or Caucasian individuals performed best on the RMET. The researchers concluded that the RMET may be unduly influenced by social class and culture, hence posing a serious challenge to assessing correctly the mental state understanding in clinical populations, especially given the strong link between social status and psychiatric illness. The team also discovered that, unlike on other tasks, the performance on the RMET improved across a person’s lifespan.

“The findings are troubling because they suggest that the RMET task may not be appropriately assessing mental state understanding in certain groups of people,” says Dodell-Feder, who also holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience at the Medical Center.

On a practical level, false assessment can be costly—monetarily and for the patient’s health. Missed MSU impairments could lead researchers and clinicians to fail to identify someone at risk for social difficulties, leading them on a path towards mental and physical decline, the researchers warn.

On the other hand, detecting impairments where they do not exist, could lead to misidentifying someone as being at-risk for social difficulties, or worse, psychopathology, causing potential stigma and unnecessary and costly interventions. Alternatively, clinicians could incorrectly conclude that a treatment for social dysfunction is working when it is not, and vice versa.

This does not necessarily mean that the test should be discarded, Dodell-Feder says. One could keep the design of the task but use different stimuli that are multiracial and include different response options, which contain a less complicated vocabulary. Team member Germine is currently testing a new, multiracial version of the task. Another option would be to abandon it, or use it alongside other tasks that have been demonstrated to be valid cross-culturally, of which there are very few in the current literature.

“Either way, our findings show that it might be premature for NIMH to make strong recommendations regarding the use of certain tasks for measuring mental state understanding before we can thoroughly assess the validity of their usage across peoples,” says Dodell-Feder.

Puerto Rican children were more likely to have poor or decreasing use of inhaled medication needed to control their asthma than Mexican American children, according to a new study by Medical Center researchers.

The study, published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, also found that girls of both ethnic groups were more likely than boys to have poor or decreasing use of the asthma control medications.

Patients with chronic asthma often require consistent use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) even when their symptoms aren’t present in order to prevent exacerbations. The study, led by Kimberly Arcoleo, associate professor in the School of Nursing, is the first to show that unique ethnicities within Latino communities may be associated with different levels of ICS adherence.

“Researchers tend to study Latinos as a single group, but we have seen that variations in controller medication adherence may be a factor in observed health disparities between Mexican and Puerto Rican children,” said Arcoleo. “Gaining a better insight into factors affecting medication adherence will provide evidence needed to identify children at the highest risk for acute episodes so that providers can offer more intensive interventions.”

The study followed 123 children, ages 5-12, with persistent asthma living in Phoenix, Arizona, and Bronx, New York, for one year. A device attached to their inhalers monitored their inhaler use, and the researchers categorized use as poor, moderate, declining adherence, or increasing adherence. All of the children received their medication for free.

The study found that between 23 percent and 32 percent of all children had poor adherence (less than 50 percent of prescribed doses taken) and less than 15 percent had good adherence (more than 80 percent of prescribed doses taken) at each three-month follow-up appointment.

Puerto Rican children were more than five times as likely as Mexican American children to have their ICS use described as poor and nearly three times as likely to have their ICS use described as decreasing.

Girls were five times as likely as boys to have their ICS use described as poor or decreasing. Children with poor adherence were more likely to go to the ER or be hospitalized for an asthma attack throughout the study period.

“We have also demonstrated that adherence is not static and there are naturally changing patterns of children’s ICS adherence over time,” said Arcoleo. “We cannot assume that a child who demonstrates good adherence at one visit will remain adherent. We need easy-to-use, validated methods of assessing adherence during the clinical visit, which is something our team is working on developing.”

Co-authors on the manuscript include Jill Halterman, professor in the Department of Pediatrics, and Hugh Crean, assistant professor of clinical nursing.

The UNYTE Translational Research Network will host an un-meeting on March 13 to bring researchers from across UNYTE institutions together to discuss and develop new, innovative ideas for genomics and proteomics translational research.

Un-meetings lack the structure and rules of classical conferences and allow participants to drive the agenda in real time. Topics of discussion will include:

• Single cell RNAseq for lung biology and respiratory disease discovery
• Impact of chemotherapy for breast cancer on leukocyte DNA methylation landscape and cognitive function
• Low input ‘omics in cardiovascular research
• Genetics of cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity
• Applied proteomics to clinical and translational research

Ultimately, this event is meant to spark new collaborative research projects, and we encourage teams to apply for up to $10,000 of UNYTE Pipeline to Pilot funding (RFA forthcoming, anticipated application deadline of April 30, 2019).

Register for the Un-Meeting by March 6, 2019 and submit an abstract to present a poster by February 27, 2019.

Rui Luo, optics, “Nonlinear Nanophotonics in Lithium Niobate.” 2 p.m. February 22, 2019. Goergen 108. Advisor: Qiang Lin.

Adora DSouza, electrical engineering, “Directed Network Recovery from Large Systems with Applications in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).” 10:30 am., March 8, 2019. Computer Studies Building Room 426. Advisor: Axel Wismueller.

Mechelle R. Sanders, health services research & policy, “Regulatory Focus Theory as an Explanation for Unwarranted Clinical Practice Variation.” 1:30 p.m., March 15, 2019. Helen Wood Hall 1W502 (Medical Center). Advisor: Peter Veazie.

Brian C. Palmer, toxicology, “The dermal toxicity and immunomodulatory effects of topically applied engineered nanomaterials in a model of allergic contact dermatitis.” 9 a.m., April 10, 2019. Upper Auditorium 3-7619 (Medical Center). Advisor: Lisa DeLouise.

Today: Center for Integrated Research Computing (CIRC) symposium. 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Wegmans 1400. Lunch will be served. Sina Ghaemmaghami from the Department of Biology will present his work on the thermodynamic stability of the human proteome using a mass spectrometry-based methodology for conducting quantitative surveys of protein folding stabilities. Reetam Paul from the Laboratory for Laser Energetics will explore the high-pressure phases and spectral properties of silicon.

Today: “Alexis de Tocqueville on France and America,” presented by Jean Pedersen, an associate professor of history at the Department Workshop, a forum for the presentation of work-in-progress by history department faculty and graduate students. 12:45 p.m. Gamble Room, Rush Rhees Library. Learn more and get a copy of the paper. 

Today: Applications due for Wilmot Cancer Research postdoctoral fellowship providing mentored research training for physicians with MD or MD/PhD degrees who have completed their residency training and intend to pursue an academic career in clinical, translational, or basic cancer research. View application details. For questions, email Pamela Iadarola or call 585-275-1537.

Feb. 21: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. Christopher Rovee, Humanities Center Fellow, presents “The New Critical Nostalgia” as part of the theme of expertise and evidence. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.

Feb. 27: Phelps Colloquium Series: Elizabeth West Marvin, professor of music theory and of brain and cognitive sciences, Experiencing Absolute Pitch: Insights from AP Possessors in the US and Asia, and Gilbert “Rip” Collins, professor of mechanical engineering and of physics and astronomy, Extreme Matters: A Laboratory Exploration of Planets, Stars, and Quantum Materials. 4-5:30 p.m. Max at Eastman. Register here. Questions? Contact Adele Coelho or call 273-2571.

March 6: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. Anna Rosensweig, assistant professor of French, presents “Affective Evidence: Rights of Resistance on the Early Modern French Stage” as part of the theme of expertise and evidence. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.

March 13: Translational genomics and proteomics un-meeting. Researchers from across UNYTE Translational Research Network member institutions will discuss and develop new, innovative, and effective ideas for genomics and proteomics translational research. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Helen Wood Hall 1-304. Click here for registration and agenda.

March 18: Applications due for up to 17 pilot project awards (maximum budget of $50,000 per award) to support novel basic, clinical and translational projects in the neurosciences. Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. Open to all Medical Center and River Campus faculty. For more information and to download the RFA, click here.

March 19: Nominations due for the Furth Fund, which provides early career scientists with $12,500 in research funds to help foster the development of promising scientists. Nominees should be junior, tenure track faculty appointed in natural or biological science departments within ASE, SMD or SON who have been hired within the past three academic years. Completed nominations should be directed to Adele Coelho at adele.coelho@rochester.edu Additional information about the Furth Fund may be found here.

March 21: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. William Miller, assistant professor of English, presents “The Prophet Muhammad in the Early English Enlightenment” as part of the theme of expertise and evidence. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.

March 22: “Stress and Anxiety Disorders.” Discussion of current research with panelists Lisa Starr of the Department of Psychology, Thomas O’Connor of the Department of Psychiatry, and psychotherapist Felicia Reed-Watt.  PONS Luncheon Roundtable Series. Noon, URMC Combined Northeastern Room 1-9525 & 1-9535. Refreshments provided.  For more information on upcoming Neuro-related events, go to http://blogs.rochester.edu/pons/.

March 27: Phelps Colloquium Series: Huaxia Rui, associate professor, Simon Business School, Open Voice or Private Message? The Hidden Tug-of-War on Social Media Customer Service, and Maria Marconi, assistant professor of clinical nursing, and specialty director of Health Care Organization and Management Master’s Program and of the master’s program in nursing, Leveraging Generational Diversity in Our Classrooms. 4-5:30 p.m. Location TBD. Register here. Questions? Contact Adele Coelho or call 273-2571.

April 3: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. Jennifer Kyker, associate professor of music, presents “Sekuru’s Stories: Musical Sound and the Digital Humanities” as part of the theme of expertise and evidence. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.

April 4: University Technology Showcase, sponsored by Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences and the Center of Excellence in Data Science. 1 to 5 p.m., Doubletree, 1111 Jefferson Road. Speakers and poster session. Register at https://ceis.wufoo.com/forms/moa11nv1mhui4d/

April 17: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. Anaar Desai-Stephens, assistant professor of ethnomusicology, presents “‘You have to feel to sing!’: Affective Pedagogy, and the Commodification of  ‘Feel’ in (Neo)liberalizing India” as part of the theme of expertise and evidence. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.

May 2: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. Tracy Stuber and Anastasia Nikolis, Public Humanities graduate fellows, present a public humanities fellowship update. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.