Patients with schizophrenia are less prone to interpret virtual others' empathetic questioning as helpful.

Individuals with schizophrenia are impaired in their neurocognition and present cognitive biases. These impairments may lead to a deficit in recognizing helping intentions of others. To investigate recognition of help, we designed a card-guessing game (Virtual Help Recognition Paradigm) involving two successive virtual agents asking questions to the participant at different moments of the game.

How and why affective and reactive virtual agents will bring new insights on social cognitive disorders in schizophrenia? An illustration with a virtual card game paradigm.

In recent decades, many studies have shown that schizophrenia is associated with severe social cognitive impairments affecting key components, such as the recognition of emotions, theory of mind, attributional style, and metacognition. Most studies investigated each construct separately, precluding analysis of the interactive and immersive nature of real-life situation. Specialized batteries of tests are under investigation to assess social cognition, which is thought now as a link between neurocognitive disorders and impaired functioning.