Baron Cohen

Question 1

What disorder did the study focus on?

Answer 1

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Question 2

What did psychologists previously believe was the cause of autism before being disregarded by biological explanations?

Answer 2

Poor parenting

Question 3

What is a theory of mind?

Answer 3

The ability to recognise that other people have minds and that they may be different from our own

Question 4

What was the name of the test used to gage autism in children and what was wrong with it?

Answer 4

Sally Anne test
Required developmental terms that are not acheivable until age 6

Question 5

Whos research did Baron Cohen build on?

Answer 5

Happe’s strange stories task

Question 6

What was the aim of the study?

Answer 6

To test whether high functioning adults with autism and asperger syndrome would strugle with a new and more difficult test for TOM

Question 7

What were the two research questions of the study?

Answer 7

Would adults with high functioning autism and aspergers syndrome be impaired on a theory of mind task for adults?
Would females be better at mind reading than males?

Question 8

What were the groups used in the study?

Answer 8

Group 1- High functioning autism and aspergers syndrome
Group 2- Normal group
Group 3- Tourettes syndrome

Question 9

How many participants were in group 1?

Answer 9

16
13 male 3 female
age 18-49

Question 10

How many participants were in group 2?

Answer 10

50
25 male 25 female
Age 18 - 48

Question 11

How many participants were in group 3?

Answer 11

10
8 male 2 female
age 18-47

Question 12

How were the participants in each group recruited?

Answer 12

Group 1- responded to magazine advert
Group 2- General population of cambridge
Group 3- Recruited from a referal clinic in London

Question 13

Why was the tourettes syndrome group included?

Answer 13

To determine if it was only adults with autism who had difficulties with theory of mind or if it also applied to adults with similar disorders

Question 14

What type of experiment is this and why?

Answer 14

Quasi
The independant variable cannot be manipulated - you cannot give a person autism

Question 15

What four tasks were participants asked to complete?

Answer 15

The eyes task
The strange stories task
Gender recognition of eyes task
Basic recognition task

Question 16

What were participants asked to do during the eyes task?

Answer 16

Participants were shown 25 different faces and were asked to select between two mental terms

Question 17

What task was carried out to ensure the validity of the eyes task?

Answer 17

Happe strange stories task

Question 18

what was the purpose of the control task?

Answer 18

to check whether difficulties with the eyes task was due to other factors

Question 19

what conclusions were drawn from the study?

Answer 19

adults with autism have an impaired theory of mind

Question 20

What were the findings of the study?

Answer 20

The autistic group did worse on the eyes task than the neurotypical group
The autistic group did equally as well on the gender recognition task as the other groups
The tourettes group did roughly the same on the eyes task as the neurotypical group
The results of the eyes task was mirrored in the strange stories task
The autism group did well on the basic emotions recognition task
Males scored lower on the eyes task than women

Question 21

What conclusions can be drawn from the findings?

Answer 21

People with autism lack an advanced theory of mind
Poor performance on the eyes task is not linked to sight
Impairement on the eyes task is not due to having a neurological disorder
Eyes task is a valid measure of theory of mind
Impairment on the eyes task is not due to a problem with social and facial recognition
Women have a more advanced theory of mind than men