Baron- Cohen

Question 0

Hypothesis

Answer 0

1. Participants with autism of AS will show significant impairment on TOM tasks
2. If participants had difficulty with happe’s strange stories, they would also have difficulty with the new test
3. Females would perform better than males on TOM tasks

Question 1

Background & aim

Answer 1

. Adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social relationships. Research using 1st order theory of mind tasks (sally anne test) have found that children with autism have difficulty with TOM.
. Aim was to find out why adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social relationships and to develop an advanced test for theory of mind with adults.

Question 2

Method

Answer 2

. Quasi experiment having matched participant design.

. 3 groups of participants matched on age and normal intelligence

Question 3

Sample

Answer 3

. 16 high functioning Aspergers - 13 male, 3 female
. 50 normal - 25 male, 25 female
. 10 Tourette’s patients - 8 male, 2 female

• the 2 clinical groups had passed 1st order TOM test at 6yr old level

Question 4

Variables

Answer 4

. IV: Normal, autistic, tourette’s

. DV: performance on eyes task (max score = 25)

Question 5

Procedure

Answer 5

. 25 photos of eyes, each black and white, shown for 3secs
. Participants tested individually, asked a forced-choice question e.g. Which word best describes this persons thinking or feelings? Reflective or unreflective?
. The TARGET is the correct answer and as a control was presented randomised on both left and right.
. ‘Eyes task’ created by selecting magazine photos, 4 judges generated the target words
. CONTROL TASKS: basic emotion recognition task and gender recognition task

Question 6

Results

Answer 6

. Autism: mean 16.3, range 10, identify gender 24.1
. Normal: mean 20.3, range 9, identify gender 23.3
. Tourettes: mean 20.4, range 9, identify gender 23.7

• normal and tourettes group better than autistic
• normal females performed significantly better than males in eyes task

Question 7

Conclusions and implications

Answer 7

. There is evidence for subtle ‘mind reading’ deficits in intelligent adults on the autistic spectrum
. Eye task is a ‘pure TOM test’ for adults because there is no context