1. Social Cognition

Social cognition is a fundamental neurocognitive capacity, included as one of the six core components of neurocognitive function in the most recent American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM‑5). It refers to the processing of social information, such as the ability to recognise facial emotions, or to understand what another person is thinking or feeling. Social cognitive impairments have the potential to be particularly devastating in clinical populations. This is because, while other neurocognitive deficits such as problems with memory or language might affect a person’s ability to work or live independently, strong social networks can reduce the impact of such disabilities on mental health. Social cognitive deficits, however, disrupt the ability to form and sustain interpersonal relationships, and are therefore particularly important predictors of quality of life and broader wellbeing.

2. Prospective Cognition

Although retrospective memory impairment (difficulties remembering past knowledge or events) has long been recognised as one of the most consistently observed cognitive deficits in clinical disorders, research now indicates that prospective memory (PM) failures are often a more prominent feature, and of greater concern, in everyday life. Prospective memory (PM) involves the formation of an intention, followed by the subsequent execution of that intended act, or ‘remembering to remember’. Because failures of prospective cognition fundamentally disrupt the ability to anticipate, plan, and/or act with the future in mind, they are powerful predictors of important functional outcomes. This is because many daily PM tasks such as remembering to take medication and check food that is cooking are critical for the maintenance of health, independence and safety. It is therefore difficult to overstate the importance of PM in a clinical context, and it has been shown that failures of PM cause more deficits in activities of daily living and caregiver burden than retrospective memory failures, and also have important implications for the management and rehabilitation of clinical patients.