Baron-Cohen (contemporary study)

Question 1

3 Aims

Answer 1

To develop a more advanced way to test Theory of Mind in adults with autism that wasn’t vulnerable to a ceiling effect (does not demonstrate full ability)
Investigate whether autistic adults have deficits in theory of mind compared to neurotypical adults
Investigate whether women show improved theory of mind compared to men

Question 2

What is theory of mind?

Answer 2

The ability to work out what another person is thinking and feeling
And differentiate what you know/feel from what someone else knows and feels
Aka empathy

Question 3

Autism

Answer 3

Neurodevelopmental disorder which involves impairments in:
Social communication
Social interaction
Social imagination

Question 4

Why was baron-cohen interested in theory of mind?

Answer 4

To see if it was a core deficit in autism

Question 5

Previous research into autism

Answer 5

Sally Anne test
Happes strange stories test

Question 6

Sally Anne test

Answer 6

Girl thought her marble was

Question 7

Sally Anne test

Answer 7

A girl had a marble in a basket and left the room, another girl moved marble into a box
When the girl comes back, where will she look for the marble?

Question 8

How does the Sally Anne test test for a deficit in theory of mind?

Answer 8

Tests whether they can differ their own knowledge of where the marble is (box) from what the girl knows, that she believes the marble is in the basket
Test social imagination eg understand what someone else thinks

Question 9

Problem with Sally Anne test

Answer 9

Ceiling effect: the test cannot measure the full extent of the deficit in theory of mind as it caps the ability at 6 years old’s ability of theory of mind
What happens if someone has a better ability than 6 year old (passes test) but still has a deficit? It will not be measured

Question 10

Happes strange stories task

Answer 10

A series of scenarios that demonstrate white lies, figures of speech, irony, jokes
Then asked P why the person in the story did this to determine if P could understand the beliefs of someone in the story are different to what they say out loud

Question 11

Problem with happes strange stories task

Answer 11

Ceiling effect: the test cannot measure the full extent of the deficit in theory of mind as it caps the ability at 8 years old’s ability of theory of mind
What happens if someone has a better ability than 8 year old (passes test) but still has a deficit? It will not be measured

Question 12

What is good about Happes strange stories task?

Answer 12

The best method to measure theory of mind thus far so used as a standard to check for concurrent validity

Question 13

Sample = for participants with autism

Answer 13

16 Ps with Asperger’s or ‘high functioning’ autism
13 male, 3 female
Aged 18-49

Question 14

Sample method for participants with autism

Answer 14

Self selected sample from an advert from national autistic society magazine

Question 15

Why did we use self selected sample for autistic patients?

Answer 15

To improve ethics, as the tests in this study maybe uncomfortable (involving eye contact and assessment of deficits)
So gain informed consent first

Question 16

Neurotypical sample

Answer 16

50 participants
25 women 25 men
Age 18-48

Question 17

Sample method for neurotypical sample

Answer 17

Random selection from Cambridge (excluding uni) from subject panel in Uni department

Question 18

Why use a neurotypical sample?

Answer 18

To test hypothesis if women have better theory of mind than men in neurotypicals
And to provide a baseline theory of mind results to compare to group with autism

Question 19

Sample for those with Tourette’s?

Answer 19

10 participants
8 male 2 female
Aged 18-47

Question 20

Sample method for those with Tourette’s?

Answer 20

Opportunity sample, recruited from London clinic

Question 21

Why did we include a sample of participants with Tourette’s?

Answer 21

Tourette’s is a neurodevelopmental disorder too
To control for factors such as disruptions to relationships, school life, ostracisation that autistic people may experience too
These factors may effect someone’s theory of mind instead of autism so we control for this including a sample of those with tourettes

Question 22

Were the samples large enough to establish a consistent effect?

Answer 22

No, low external reliability

Question 23

Gender mix of samples

Answer 23

Equal in neurotypical sample: reflects reality
Skewed for androcentric bias in autism/Tourette’s group

Question 24

Is it good to have gender bias in the Tourette’s/ autism group?

Answer 24

arguably reflects the gender composition of those diagnosed with autism/tourettes
But may not account for if differences between gender within each disorder if the sample is too small to determine consistent effect

Question 25

What is Asperger’s?

Answer 25

A form of high functioning autism but someone displays no delay in language development compared to high functioning autism

Question 26

How many tasks in this procedure were there in total?

Answer 26

4

Question 27

4 tasks

Answer 27

Happes strange stories task
Gender recognition task
Basic emotion recognition task
Eyes task

Question 28

What task did all groups do?

Answer 28

The eyes task

Question 29

What tasks did the autistic group do?

Answer 29

All 4

Question 30

What tasks did the neurotypical sample do?

Answer 30

Only the eyes task

Question 31

What task did the Tourette’s group do?

Answer 31

Eyes task and Happes strange stories task

Question 32

Eyes task designed by Baron Cohen

Answer 32

The new test for theory of mind not vulnerable to a ceiling effect

Question 33

How did the eyes task work?

Answer 33

Ps shown 25 pictures of eyes from a magazine
Asked to select which emotion from semantically different adjectives below picture best fit the picture

Question 34

Controls for eyes task

Answer 34

Same source, same size, in black and white, same format displays, asked same question ‘what word best describes what this person is thinking or feeling?’

Question 35

How were the words on the eyes task decided?

Answer 35

A panel of 4 judges generated words for the eyes task
Then 8 raters test this eyes task

Question 36

Why use Happes strange stories?

Answer 36

To check for concurrent validity of the eyes task

Question 37

Gender and emotion recognition task

Answer 37

Given to only autistic participants to recognise gender of eyes task/ emotions from face
To ensure deficits measured were due to theory of mind and NOT an extraneous variable eg inability to engage with the tasks in recognising eyes from photos or understand emotions (increases validity)

Question 38

Testing for concurrent validity with Happes strange stories task

Answer 38

Testing newly designed eyes tasks gives same results as scores on Happes strange stories task
Performance on Happes correlates with performance on eyes task

Question 39

Results for eyes task

Answer 39

Mean correct answers for those with autism = 16.3/25
Mean correct answers for neurotypical= 20.3/25
Significant difference

Question 40

Neurotypical men vs women scores on eyes task

Answer 40

Significantly higher scores women achieved compared to men

Question 41

Conclusions

Answer 41

Adults with autism display deficits in theory of mind despite being of average or higher than average IQ compared to those without autism
Deficit due to autism and not childhood factors as shown by no significant difference between scores of Tourette’s group with neurotypical group

Question 42

Quasi experiment

Answer 42

Because the independent variable, ie whether you have autism, Tourette’s or neither is naturally occurring and cannot be manipulated by the researcher

Question 43

Controls across each group

Answer 43

Ensure all Ps are of same age/ average IQ
To control for the above variables affecting scores on eyes task other than having autism

Question 44

Were the eyes task a valid way to measure theory of mind?

Answer 44

Problem= may be susceptible to bias as the words were decided by people and maybe not an objective way to decide what emotions are displayed

Question 45

Was the eyes task reliable?

Answer 45

Used multiple raters/judges to check for consistency in rating words for eyes task that the words chosen are consistent