Skepticism about the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test

The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), which we discussed the other day, has been critiqued in a series of papers:

– Construct validity evidence reporting practices for the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test: A systematic scoping review

– Why most research based on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test is unsubstantiated and uninterpretable: A response to Murphy and Hall (2024)

– Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test scores demonstrate poor structural properties in nine large non-clinical samples

– Validation of the reading the mind in the eyes test requires an interpretable factor model

And these criticisms have been summarized in a piece aimed at a wider audience:

– The widely used measure of “theory of mind” needs to be re-examined, along with the long-standing claim that autism is linked to a lack of this ability.

I don’t know this literature and will offer no professional opinion. From personal experience, I have general skepticism about anything involving looking people in the eyes!