Baron-cohen Flashcards
What is Tourette’s ?
A neurological condition and is characterised by tics, involuntary and uncontrollable sounds and movements.
What is autism?
A lifelong developmental disability with no cure. Children with autism grow up to be adults with autism.
(Symptoms occur before 36 months of age)
What are the similarities or autism and Tourette’s ?
Both associated with abnormalities in the front of the brain.
Both develop at childhood
Describe condition 1?
High functing autism or with asperger syndrome.
Describe the sample number and gender of condition 1 ?
16 people
13 men
3 women
What was the intelligence of all conditions?
They were of all normal intelligence.
How were the participants for condition 1 recruited ?
An advertisement in the national Austistic society magazine, also through doctors.
What were the sampling techniques used in condition 1,2 and 3 ?
1- volunteer
2- random
3- opportunity
What was the condition for condition 2?
No history of psychiatric disorder (normal)
What was the sample number and gender of condition 2 ?
50 aged matched controls
25 male
25 female
How were the participants from condition 2 recruited ?
From the subject department panel at Cambridge university.
What as the condition in condition 3 ?
Tourette’s syndrome
What was the sample number and gender used in condition 3 ?
10 adults
8 male
2 female
How were they recruited ?
From a referral centre in London
What is theory of mind ?
The ability to understand that people have minds of their own
What was the strange stories task and which 2 conditions take part?
The condition with Tourette’s or autism, involved presenting participants with stories based around jokes, if the Austic condition did badly in both it would be testing theory of mind .
What were the results of the strange stories task?
The autistic condition made more errors that the Tourette’s condition.
After being shown the photos in the eyes task what did the participants have to do?
Have to select an emotion from 2 choices either concerned or unconcerned.
What was the average score of the autistic condition?
16.3 out of 25
What was the average score in the Tourette’s condition?
20.4 out of 25
What was the average score on the eyes task for the normal condition?
20.3 out of 25
What is the ceiling effect?
This is when the participants abilities are limited because they are unable to prove or demonstrate any more skill and intelligence
What size wd each photograph?
15x10cm
What’s an example of a foil word?
Concerned- unconcerned
What did the females score in the eyes task?
21.8
What did males score on the eyes task?
18.8
Why was the gender recongnition task used?
Allowed the researcher to check if any deficts on the eyes task could contribute to general deficts in face perception .
What are the 6 basic emotions?
Happy Sad Angry Afraid Disgust Surprise
What is autism?
A lifelong developmental disability with no cure. Children with this grow up with this tend to be adults with this.
Symptoms occur before 36 months of age.
What is tourettes?
a neurological condition and is characterized by tics, involuntary and uncontrollable sounds and movements.
What are the similarities between autism and tourettes?
both associated with abnormalities in the front of the brain. Both develop in childhood.
What is the condition sample number, gender and intelligence level of condition 1?
High functioning autism/ Aspergers syndrome
16 p/s 13 men, 3 women
all of normal intelligence.
How were the p/s recruited in condition 1? and what was the sampling technique?
An advertisement in the national autism society magazine and through doctors
Volunteer
What is the condition sample number, gender and intelligence level of condition 2?
no history of psychiatric disorder,
50 aged matched p/s
normal intelligence
How were the p/s recruited in condition 2? and what was the sampling technique?
Selected by the subject panel at Cambridge university.
random
What is the condition sample number, gender and intelligence level of condition 3?
Tourette’s syndrome
10 adults 8 men and 2 women
all of normal intelligence
How were the p/s recruited in condition 3? and what was the sampling technique?
From a referral centre in London
Opportunity
What was the procedure for the eyes task?
P/s shown photos of 25 different male & female faces for 3 seconds , after they were given the choice between 2 emotions. both semantic opposite e.g. concerned and unconcerned. Then asked “what word best describes what this person is feeling?”
What are the results of the eyes task?
The non-autistic participants were able to cope better than those who were autistic.
If a person guessed, they would achieve 15 out of 25, only 8 of the autistics performed better than this.
what was the procedure of the basic emotion recognition task?
Involved judging photographs of faces displaying emotions. This was designed to check any difficulties on the eyes task could be a defect in basic emotion expression recongnition.
What were the results of the basic emotion recognition task ?
no difference on condition.
what were the only two conditions tested on the eyes task?
autistic and tourettes condition
what was the procedure of strange stories?
Presenting p/s with stories based around: jokes, white lies, figures of speech.
what was the strange stories used for?
to check validity of the eyes task. If autistic p/s perform badly in both, then the eyes task should be testing for theory of mind.
What were the results of the strange stories?
The autistic condition, made more errors than the tourettes condition
What were the 4 tasks used to test for theory of mind?
the eyes task
basic emotion recognition task
strange stories
Gender recognition
What was the procedure for the gender recognition task?
Used the same sets of eyes in prev experiments, but had to identify the gender. Allowed the researcher to check if any defects on the eyes task could contribute to general defects in face perception.
How were the pictures of eyes task standardized?
All black and white
same region of face (from midway along the nose to just above the eyebrow)
Photos all the same size
What is theory of mind?
The ability to understand that people have thoughts and minds of their own. And to see things from another perspective.
What does the term ceiling effect mean?
This is when participants abilities are limited because they are unable to prove or demonstrate any further skill or ability. e.g. in baron-cohens eyes task adults limited to 6 year olds intelligence.
What were the results of the basic emotion recognition task and gender recognition task?
no difference on condition ( e.g. regardless of autism etc)
What is an example of a difference between performance of the autistic adults and tourettes syndrome adults?
On the eyes task autistic adults got 16.3 out of 25 compared to the tourettes adults that scored 20.4, showing the tourettes adults are more capable of copping with the eye task compared to the autistic adults.
How might eyes task lack ecological validity?
In real life we can see whole faces, so we can detect emotions that way.
Identify one of the word pairs used in eyes task
Concerned- unconcerned
Why did Baron-Cohen devise a new theory of mind test?
As the sally ann test only allowed the adults to perform to the same ability as a 6 year old child, this made it difficult to test further intelligence. So baron- cohen wanted an adult version.
