Reading the mind in the eyes
The “Reading the mind in the eyes task” (Eyes Task; [21]) is the
most widely used test of affective theory of mind (ToM) in adults. This
task requires participants to judge the complex mental states depicted
in pictures of the eye region using a forced choice among four
adjectives (e.g., bored, irritated, comforting, playful). Deficits in
the affective ToM assessed by using the Eyes task have been observed
across a range of psychiatric conditions characterized by social and
interpersonal dysfunctions, including autism spectrum disorder [21],
schizophrenia [22], and unipolar major depressive disorder [23].
To our knowledge, only two studies have employed the Eye task to assess
the decoding of mental states in euthymic bipolar patients, yielding
mixed results: difficulties in TOM have been observed in one study
[6], but not in another [24]. Therefore, further studies are
surely essential to shed light on this issue.