Patients with schizophrenia have difficulties in representing the mental states of others. the capacity to appreciate others’ mental states is called Theory of Mind (ToM). Usually patients in remission are able to pass first- and second order ToM tasks, but they have difficulties with understanding more complex situations. A faux pas (FP) task contains a social situation when someone says something he or she should not have said, or something awkward. Understanding these situations requires higher-order ToM skills. in our study faux pas tasks were used to assess mentalization deficits among patients with schizophrenia in remission.

Seventeen patients and seventeen matched control individuals were evaluated. ToM skills were assessed by computerized FP tasks. the answers and the time the participants used to read the stories and answer the questions were recorded. the participants carried out 5 FP tasks and 5 control tasks.

Patients with schizophrenia performed significantly worse in faux pas tasks (p=0,0033), and memory questions (p=0,0033). Patients needed significantly more time to read both faux pas (p=0,0098) and control stories (p=0,0002). However the patients did not spend significantly more time to answer the questions then the control subjects (p=0,9966 p=0,8705).

Patients with schizophrenia performed a sinificant impairment in ToM tasks. Beside, an improving tendency was found also in the patient's and in the control group's answers suggesting a capacity to “learn” in the dimension of mentalization.