Baron-cohen et al (2001) Flashcards
theory of mind?
an ability to determine mental states to ourselves and others
ceiling effect?
when a large amount of ppts in a study have maximum scores on a test/task
an aim?
to test HFA/AS adults on a revised eyes test to see if it could detect deficits
sample - group 1
- 15 adult males with HFA/AS
- all diagnosed in specialist centres
- mean IQ of 115
- mean age 29.7 y/o
- volunteer sampling
- national autistic society magazine or support group
sample - group 2
- 122 neurotypical adults
- mean age 46.5 y/o
- wide range of education/employment
- opportunity sampling
- adult classes & public libraries
sample - group 3
- 103 neurotypical students
- mean age 20.8 y/o
- assumed high IQ
- opportunity sampling
- cambridge uni (mainly science undergrads)
sample - group 4
- 14 neurotypical adult males
- IQ matched with HFA/AS group
- mean IQ 166
- mean age 28 y/o
- randomly selected from general population
psychology investigated?
social sensitivity ; theory of mind
social sensitivity
how effectively an individual can identify, understand and respect the feelings and views of another person during social interactions
state 2 changes made from the original eyes test
og - more female than male faces, bias
rev - use an equal number of male and femals faces
og - unclear if ppts understood the vocabulary used for the choices
rev- ass a glossary so ppts can look definitions up
target word?
correct emotion
foil words
incorrect emotion
procedure
- 36 pictures of eyes (18 male, 18 female)
- each with 4 choices of emotion on the face of the target
- photos were selected by pilot study, target and foils words were devised by two authors
- questions were piloted an groups of 8 (4f, 4m)
- no more than 2 judges could select a foil word
- ppt were asked to first read through the glossary and meanings, stating the words that they did not understand
- complete the items with no time limit
- the HFA/AS group were also asked to identify the gender of the person in the photo as a control task
- general population had shown they could do this with 100% accuracy, group 2,3,4 were not asked to do this
- IQ test used is called the short WAIS-R and contained sections on block design, vocab, similarities, and picture complection
- done before being set into ppt group
type of experimental design
laboratory enviornment
experimental desgin
independant measures, not randomly allocated
data collection method
self-report questionnaire, computerised task
IV
ppt groups (HFA/AS, adult comparisons, student comparison, matched IQ) also sex (m/f)
1 qualitative data
the word choices used to describe the emotion shown on the pictures of eyes
quantitative data
HFA/AS group scored significantly lower than neurotypical groups with a mean score 21.9 out of 36 compared to 26.2
correlation
negative correlation between AQ score and score on revised eyes test (all groups)
1 conclusion
IQ and eyes test do not correlate, suggesting social intelligence and non-social intelligence are independent
ethical issues
- debriefed
- confidentiality
- informed consent, HFA/AS may have felt pressured to do the experiment
- HFA/AS may have suffered psychological harm from not being able to complete the eyes test accurately, embarrasament, lowered self-esteem
2 strengths
- highly standardised, high reliability and replicability
- controlled variables & matched pairs - sex, age, IQ of ppts
2 weaknesses
- low ecological valitidy
small sample size for HFA/AS group, males only, low generalisability - self-report measures, biases, demand characteristics
