Normative data for the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test in a Spanish adult population

Objective: The present study aims to provide Spanish normative data for the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) in a Spanish adult population.

Method: The normative sample consisted of 167 subjects aged between 20 and 94 years. The main sociodemographic variables (age, education level, and sex) were analysed, and raw scores were transformed into age-adjusted scaled scores, with the corresponding adjustments when a significant influence was found.

Results: Age had a negative effect on test performance in the oldest age group (≥ 50 years), whereas education level had a positive effect on test performance in both age groups; furthermore, women performed better than men. Education level (r2 = 0.226 in the < 50 years group; r2 = 0.237 in the ≥ 50 years group) and sex (r2 = 0.260 in the < 50 years group; r2 = 0.287 in the ≥ 50 years group) had a greater influence on test performance than age (r2 = 0.000 in the < 50 years group; r2 = 0.084 in the ≥ 50 years group).

Conclusion: The normative data provided may be useful to improve the representativeness of RMET performance in young and older adults from the Spanish population.

Keywords: Cognición Social; Normas/Estudios normativos; Norms/Normative studies; Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test; Social Cognition; Teoría de la Mente; Test de Lectura de la Mente a través de la Mirada; Theory of mind.