Impaired theory of mind performance in patients with recurrent bipolar disorder: Moderating effect of cognitive load

The aim of this study was to investigate theory of mind (ToM) performance on tasks that varied in the demands they placed on cognitive processing resources in a sample of 14 bipolar patients with subsyndromal illness and 14 controls. Patients showed impaired performance on cognitively demanding second-order ToM tasks. Reduced ToM performance was associated with longer illness duration, and with increased symptom severity.