Baron Cohen

Question 0

What is a theory of mind?

Answer 0

An individual’s theory about how minds in general work, including their own and other people’s

Question 1

What was the aim of the study?

Answer 1

The aim was to provide support for a cognitive explanation of autism, specifically that autistic adults lack advanced theory of mind skills

Question 3

What was the methodology?

Answer 3

A quasi experiment

Question 4

What was the independent variable?

Answer 4

The three different groups of subjects. These where the normal group, group with high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome, and group with Tourette’s syndrome.

Question 5

What was the dependant variable?

Answer 5

The performance on an advanced theory of mind test (eyes task)

Question 6

What were the two control tasks?

Answer 6

Gender recognition task, and basic emotion recognition task.

Question 7

What was the eyes task?

Answer 7

Involved looking at the same sets of eyes as in the experimental task, but this time identifying the gender of the person. Maximum score was also 25

Question 8

What was the basic emotion recognition task?

Answer 8

Involved judging photos of whole faces displaying basic emotions.

Question 9

What was the test for theory of mind, the eyes task?

Answer 9

Involved photos of the eye region. Standardised - all black and white, same region of face, shown for 3 secs with a forced choice of 2 mental state terms underneath. One was correct, the other a foil term. Maximum score was 25

Question 10

Identify 3 examples of the word pairs used

Answer 10

Concerned - unconcerned. Interested - disinterested. Noticing you - ignoring you.

Question 11

What was the mean performance of the autism/Asperger’s syndrome group on the eyes task & gender recognition task?

Answer 11

16.3 & 24.1

Question 12

What was the mean performance of the normal group on the eyes task & gender recognition task?

Answer 12

20.3 & 23.3

Question 13

What was the mean performance of the Tourette’s syndrome group on the eyes task & gender recognition task?

Answer 13

20.4 & 23.7

Question 14

Which gender did better in eyes task?

Answer 14

Females did significantly better in the eyes task than males

Question 15

What did Baron-Cohen conclude?

Answer 15

Baron-Cohen confirmed that adults with autism or Asperger’s syndrome, despite being of normal or above average IQ, performed poorly on the eyes task, an advanced test of theory of mind. The core deficit involved in autism is the lack of an advanced theory of mind