ASD individual differences exp

Question 1

what is theory of mind

Answer 1

having an understanding that people have thoughts, emotions, desires, beliefs and intentions that may be different from our own.
baron - cohen argued that people with ASD don’t have a proper theory of mind

Question 2

how does ToM explain ASD behaviours

Answer 2

causes a reduced abiltiy to recognise and understand the thoughts and feelings of others. this then affects social interaction and communication skills

Question 3

example of precursors to ToM seen in child development

Answer 3

childs ability to
- engage in pretend play
- imitate others
- follow a persons gaze
this is meant to be developing by 14 months but this is delayed with children who go on to be diagnose with ASD.

Question 4

what two things did baron- cohen argued are the foundations of ToM

Answer 4

• Ability to distinguish between mental and physical things
• ability to distinguish between appearances and reality

Question 5

mental vs physical example

Answer 5

two characters where one is holding a drink (physical) and the other is thinking of holding a drink (mental)

Question 6

appearances vs reality example

Answer 6

understanding that things aren’t as they seem. a child would struggle to know if a toy apple was real or not if they had ASD.

Question 7

Sally anne test

Answer 7

test where a child is told a story about sally putting a marble in a basket and then goes to a different room. anne moves the marble into a box. child is asked where sally will look for the marble. tested 4 year olds in 3 groups. asd children = 20% answered correct. downsyndrome children = 86% answered correctly. neurotypical children= 85% answered correctly

Question 8

why was wcc developed

Answer 8

ToM was seen as incomplete as it couldn’t explain all characteristics.

Question 9

global processing

Answer 9

the act of processing a visual stimulus holistically. most people have a global preference

Question 10

local processing

Answer 10

focuses on attention to detail rather than meaning of the whole

Question 11

define weak central coherence

Answer 11

impaired global processing but enhanced local processing

Question 12

shah and frith (1993) procedures

Answer 12

tested weak central coherence with 20 people with ASD, 13 people with learning difficulties, 17 typically developing children.
all were shown a two-dimensional pattern on a card
they had to redo the pattern using small blocks.

Question 13

shah and frith (1993) results

Answer 13

people with asd performed better than other groups
shows that people with ASD have a weak central coherence