Baron-Cohen et al. (1997) - Advanced Theory of Mind

Question 1

Baron-Cohen et al. - Background

Answer 1

• Theory of mind (TOM): the ability to infer and understand another’s mental state and use this information to explain and predict human behaviour
• Wanted to develop tests for TOM in adults as it had only been previously studied in children
• Happe (1994) - tested adults with autism/Aspergers on an ‘advanced’ TOM test; stories with

Question 2

Baron-Cohen et al. - Research Method

Answer 2

• Quasi experiment: IV whether person had high functioning autism/Aspergers, had tourettes or were neurotypical, DV score /25 on Eyes Task
• Matched participants design: all ps considered to be of normal intelligence and were age matched

Question 3

Baron-Cohen et al. - Sample

Answer 3

• Autism group: 16 individuals with high-functioning autism/Aspergers, 13:3 m:f, self selected sample recruited through an advert in the National Autistic magazine
• Tourettes group: 10 individuals age matched w other groups, 8:2 m:f, self selected sample recruited from a tertiary referral centre in London
• Neurotypical group: 50 individuals age matched w other groups, 25:25 m:f, random sampling drawn from the general population of Cambridge from a subject panel held in the Uni

Question 4

Baron-Cohen et al. - Eyes Task

Answer 4

• Ps shown 25 black and white photos of eyes for 3 seconds each
• Asked which mental state is best represented in the eyes using a semantic differential scale of two mental states

Question 5

Baron-Cohen et al. - Procedure: control tasks

Answer 5

• Gender Recognition Task: involved identifying the gender of the eyes used in the Eyes Task, controlling for face perception, perceptual discrimination and social perception
• Basic Emotion Recognition Task: involved judging photographs of whole faces displaying basic emotions; done to check whether difficulties on the Eyes Task were due to difficulties with basic emotional recognition

Question 6

Baron-Cohen et al. - Procedure: Strange Stories Task

Answer 6

• Used to validate the results from the Eyes Task
• Involved telling a story which involved telling what was irony/sarcasm (from Happe’s original study)
• Ps were tested individually in a quiet room either in their own home, in the researchers’ clinic or in the researchers’ lab at Cambridge Uni

Question 7

Baron-Cohen et al. - Findings

Answer 7

• Mean score for adults w Tourettes (20.4) and neurotypical (20.3) were both significantly higher than the autism/AS mean score (16.3)
• Normal females performed significantly better than normal males on the Eyes Task (21.8 vs 18.8)
• Autism/AS group made significantly more errors on the Strange Stories task than either of the other groups
• No difference between groups on control tasks
• No significant correlation between IQ and autism group’s performance on the Eyes Task

Question 8

Baron-Cohen et al. - Conclusions

Answer 8

• Adults with autism/AS have impaired theory of mind
• As some of the autism/AS group hold university degrees and were all of normal intelligence, TOM deficits are independent of general intelligence