Baron-Cohen Flashcards
What was the aim of the study?
- Test whether high functioning adults with Autism & Asperger’s would struggle with a new & more difficult test for theory of mind
Identify the 3 groups of participants & where they were recruited from
Group 1 = 16 (4 Autism) (3 F)
= recruited through advert in Autistic magazine
Group 2 = 50 normal (25 F)
= from Cambridge
Group 3 = 10 Tourette’s (2 F)
= recruited from referral centre in London
What method was used?
What design was used?
Method = Quasi experiment
Design = Matched Pairs Design (age matched)
What is the IV & DV?
IV = the of person
DV = performance out of 25 on Eye test
How was the test administered?
- Participants shown 25 black & white photos of eyes for 3 seconds
- Had to chose between two mental states (Target/Foil)
What 4 tests did the participants have to complete?
- Eye test
- Strange stories = validated results from eye test
- Gender recognition Task = controlled for face perception & perceptual discrimination
- Basic emotion recognition Task = photo of whole face to test whether able to identify basic emotions
Where were the 3 option that the participant could be tested in?
- Their home
- Researchers clinic
- Researchers lab at Cambridge uni
What were the results?
Mean score out of 25
Autistic = 16
Normal = 20
Tourette’s = 20
What were 2 conclusions of the study?
- This provides evidence that adults with Autism do process with an impaired theory of mind
- Theory of mind deficits are independent of general intelligence
