Baron Cohen (1997)

Question 1

What is the theme of Baron Cohen ?

Answer 1

Understanding disorders.

Question 2

What are some characteristics of autism ?

Answer 2

-Struggling with eye contact.
-Repeat behaviours.
-Difficulty with emotional and social skills.
-Desire for sameness.

Question 3

What is the Theory of Mind ?

Answer 3

Not a theory but a set of beliefs developed by each individual. The understanding that someone else has a separate mind to your own and therefore, does not see/experience the world as you do.

Question 4

What was some previous research to Baron Cohen ?

Answer 4

Sally Anne test, that demonstrated that children with ASC lacked Theory of Mind. However can only be used in children.

Question 5

What is a ceiling effect ?

Answer 5

Too easy for older people to complete so limits them.

Question 6

What did Happé state ?

Answer 6

Designed for more advanced children. Had to judge mental or physical state. People with ASC have more difficulty judging mental state compared to physical state.

Question 7

What was the aim of Baron Cohen ?

Answer 7

To investigate if high functioning adults with ASC did have Theory of Mind by using more appropriate testing. Also was to extend Happé’s research.

Question 8

What type of experiment was Baron Cohen ?

Answer 8

Quasi Experiment.

Question 9

What experimental design was Baron Cohen ?

Answer 9

Matched-pairs design.

Question 10

What is the length of Baron Cohen ?

Answer 10

It was a snapshot study, so was done there and then.

Question 11

What was the sample of baron Cohen (ASC condition) ?

Answer 11

-16 ppts with high functioning ASC using self-selected drawn from advertisement in National Autistic Society magazine.

Question 12

What was the sample of Baron Cohen (normal condition) ?

Answer 12

50 normal adults (25 males + 25 females) age matched with ASC condition. Random sampling drawn from subject panel at University of Cambridge. Control group

Question 13

What was the sample of Baron Cohen (Tourettes condition) ?

Answer 13

10 ppts with Tourettes syndrome, age matched with self selected group from London. Control group.

Question 14

Materials for eye task

Answer 14

Photographs from eye region of 25 different faces, male and female. Photos were taken from a magazine and were standardised, same size (15x10) and all in black and white.

Question 15

What was the procedure of the eyes task ?

Answer 15

Ppts were shown pictures of eyes 3 seconds each and asked to identify word that they thought displayed emotion of the eyes. This was them identifying the mental state of photos.

Question 16

What was the results of the eyes task ?

Answer 16

-ASC did less well (mean = 16.3/25)
-Normal and TS was same (mean = 20.3/20.4)
-Ceiling effect in normal and TS (25/25)

Question 17

Results on gender in eyes task

Answer 17

-Normal female scored better than normal males.
-Normal males scored significantly better than ASC group.
-Normal and TS scored identically, whereas autism were less able to cope with eyes task.

Question 18

What was the Strange Stories Task ?

Answer 18

Using Happé, ppts answered questions based on what characters were thinking and on physical events. Questions were hypothetical and figure of speech.

Question 19

Results of Strange Stories task

Answer 19

-ASC had difficulty and made more errors than TS.
-performance on eyes task should positively correlate with performance on strange stories.
-No puts in TS made any mistakes.

Question 20

Gender Recognition of eyes task

Answer 20

ASC had to identify gender of the pictures of eyes. No mind reading but face perception. Control task to check for impairments.

Question 21

Basic Emotion Recognition Task

Answer 21

Another control, where ppts and to identify basic emotions to demonstrate they could recognise emotional states in simple test.

Question 22

Results of recognition and emotion task

Answer 22

-ASC performed normally on gender and emotion recognition.
-Couldn’t interpret what this means in terms of an internal state.

Question 23

How does Baron-Cohen link to individual differences approach ?

Answer 23

Focusses on trying to understand how people differ, in this case through the ASC spectrum.

Question 24

What were 2 control tasks in Baron-Cohen ?

Answer 24

Gender of eyes and basic recognition.