Baron-Cohen et al. (naomi) [done]

Question 1

What is the “Theory of Mind” proposed by Baron-Cohen?

Answer 1

The “Theory of Mind” is a concept developed by Baron-Cohen, which refers to the ability to attribute mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, to oneself and others. It helps us understand and predict the behavior of others based on their mental states.

Question 2

How did Baron-Cohen contribute to the understanding of autism?

Answer 2

Baron-Cohen’s research has significantly contributed to the understanding of autism by proposing the “Theory of Mind” as a key factor in understanding the social and communication difficulties experienced by individuals with autism. He suggested that individuals with autism may have impaired “Theory of Mind,” leading to challenges in understanding and interpreting others’ thoughts and emotions.

Question 3

What was the hypothesis of Baron-Cohen et al.’s study?

Answer 3

• The AS/HFA group would score significantly lower on the mental state judgments on the eyes test, but be unimpaired on the gender control judgments
• The AS/HFA group would score significantly higher in the AQ
• Females in the normal groups (2 &3) would score higher than males on the eye test
• Males in the normal group (3) would score higher than females on the AQ
• Scores on the AQ and the Eyes Test would be inversely correlated

Question 4

What was the methodology used by Baron-Cohen et al. in their study?

Answer 4

Research Method: Natural experiment
Research Design: Independent groups design

Question 5

What was the sample used in of Baron-Cohen et al.’s study?

Answer 5

Group 1: 15 male adults with AS or HFA. Recruited via adverts in the UK National Autistic Society Magazine, or equivalent support groups. They spanned an equivalent range of socioeconomic classes and educational levels as seen in group 2.

Group 2: 122 normal adults drawn from the adult community and educational classes in Exeter, or from public library users in Cambridge. They had a broad
range of occupations and educational levels.

Group 3: 103 normal adult students (53 male; 50
female) studying for undergraduate degrees in Cambridge University (71 in sciences, 32 in other subjects). This group is not representative of the
general population and can be considered to have a
high IQ.

Group 4: Randomly selected 14 adults from the
the general population who were matched for their IQ
with group 1.

Question 6

what is the aim of the study?

Answer 6

• To reduce the errors of psychometric properties of the “Reading the Mind”(Baron-Cohen, 1997) Test.
• To test a group of adults with AS or HFA on the revised version of the test in order to replicate the findings of the previous study
• To test if in a sample of normal adults, an inverse correlation would be found between performance on the Eyes Test (Revised) and the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ)
• To test if the sex difference (female superiority) found in the first version of the test

Question 7

What is the “Autism Quotient (AQ)” test, and what is its purpose?

Answer 7

The “Autism Quotient (AQ)” is a self-assessment questionnaire developed by Baron-Cohen and his colleagues to measure the extent to which an individual may have traits associated with autism. It consists of statements related to social skills, communication, imagination, and attention to detail. The test helps identify the likelihood of an individual having autism-related traits.

Question 8

How has Baron-Cohen’s research influenced the field of psychology and autism research?

Answer 8

Baron-Cohen’s research has had a profound impact on the fields of psychology and autism research. His “Theory of Mind” has become a foundational concept in understanding social cognition and communication difficulties, not only in individuals with autism but also in typical development. His work has also opened up new avenues of research on the biological and cognitive underpinnings of human behavior, including sex differences and gender development. Additionally, his contributions have helped raise awareness about autism and the need for early intervention and support for individuals with autism spectrum conditions.

Question 9

what was the independent variable of the study?

Answer 9

Whether they had AS/HFA or were normal.

Question 10

what was the dependent variable of the study?

Answer 10

DV: R-ET score; AQ score; gender identification

Question 11

what were the materials used in this study?

Answer 11

• WAIS-R for entry criteria
• Revised Eyes Test
• Autism Spectrum Quotient
• Glossary (Appendix B)

Question 12

define the term “mentalizing”/”theory of mind”

Answer 12

Theory of mind is also referred to as mentalizing or mind reading and overlap with the term “empathy”
The understanding that other people have their own thoughts and beliefs about the world, which may differ from our own thoughts and beliefs

Question 13

what is the ceiling effect?

Answer 13

ceiling effects occur when a considerable percentage of participants score the best or maximum possible score, while floor effects occur when the opposite happens

Question 14

describe the procedure of the study

Answer 14

• Baron-Cohen conducted a pilot study where there were 8 judges. For the target words and foils for each of the 36 eye sets to be chosen.
• At least 5 judges had to agree on the target word.
• No more than 2 could select a foil word. Control groups were first tested with 40 photos but then
  eliminated 4 later on, leaving 36 items.

Each test was individually administered at Cambridge or Exeter. There was no time limit. Each PP was given a practice and then the 36 eye sets, and 4 possible target words. Group 1 judged the gender of each photo as a control. Groups 1, 3, and 4 completed the AQ test. Ps read through the glossary of terms and clarify doubts. They could use the glossary during the test. Ethics: Ps consent was taken & data anonymized.

Question 15

what were the results of the study?

Answer 15

• Subjects in the four groups did not differ in the number of words in the glossary that they were unsure of
• In all subjects, the number of words checked never exceeded two
• Revised Eyes task showed a significant main effect of groups, F(3,250) = 17.87, p=.0001
• Group 1 performed significantly worse than the other 3 groups
• Sex differences showed female superiority between groups 2 & 3 significantly
• All AS/HFA scored 33 or above out of 36 on the gender recognition control task
• No significant difference was found between subject studies in group 3
  -On AQ, group 1 scored significantly higher than the other 2 (3 &4) groups
• In group 3, males scored significantly higher than females in AQ
• Correlation between AQ and Eyes test was inversely correlated (r = -.53, p=.004)
• No correlation between AQ and IQ; Eyes test and IQ
• The eyes test was inversely correlated with the social skills category and communication category in Group
• Scores on the R-ET ranged from 17-35, mode: 24.
• Group 1 performed worse on R-ET than others.
• Group 1 performed better on the AQ test than other groups.
• Females scored higher on R-ET.
• There was a negative correlation (of -0.53) between AQ and R-ET scores.

Question 16

what was concluded in the study of Baron-cohen et al.?

Answer 16

• The modifications from the original version led to normal performance being significantly below the ceiling
• AS or HFA are significantly impaired in eyes task
• Eyes test is a useful test to identify subtle impairments in social intelligence in otherwise normally intelligent adults
• Sex differences was established (female superiority) among general population and student controls
• AS/HFA adults have a deficit in identifying emotions of others.
• AS/HFA adults score higher on the AQ than the general population.
• Gender differences found on the R-ET as females performed better than men.
• R-ET was a sensitive measure of adult social intelligence.

Question 17

how might this study be applicable to everyday life?

Answer 17

• The test is useful to clinical groups beyond those on ASD (brain-damaged patients)
• Is used with fMRI to detect brain activities
• The study has proved that the core deficit in AS/HFA is a lack of advanced theory of mind

Question 18

what are some strengths of the study?

Answer 18

• it is high in reliability. The standardization of the presentation of the stimuli and the procedure eases the process of replication for future research hence the study has high reliability. Participants were tested in a quiet room and were shown 36 images of the eye stimulus. They were all then asked to select a word that best describes the emotion in the image and were all informed that they are allowed to refer to the glossary of words at any point during the revised eye test.
• Natural Experiment. This study aims to test autistic adults to see if the revised version of the eye test works specifically with 15 male adults that were formally diagnosed with AS/HFA and recruited from an autistic society magazine. A natural experiment allows us to study variables that would be unethical or impossible to manipulate. Therefore this study is able to explore the theory of mind of autistic participants via the eyes test making the natural experiment a strength.
• usefulness (Usefulness is the extent in which the findings of the study can help to improve the lives of people). This is advantageous as the Eyes Test can be used to help detect autism, such as when a child/adult scores low on the test it might indicate a lack of Theory of Mind so that person can receive help. Hence, this study is useful. For example, this study identified that the mean of the eyes test score was lower for the AS/HFA adults (m = 2.19) than general population group (m = 26.2), proving the eyes test can be used to identified limitation in theory of mind.

Question 19

what are the weaknesses of the study?

Answer 19

• Low on ecological validity. In real life mental states are assessed from a person that is animated with eyes and face move continuously. The artificiality of the experiment setting and task might cause responses of participants to not reflect real life/natural behaviour lowering the ecological validity. The study was conducted in a laboratory where participants identified mental states from 36 black and white static photographs of eyes that were taken from a magazine.
• Low in validity. However, only 5 of the judges had to agree, indicating room for uncertainty on the word selected to match the image shown. This shows that, interpretation of the emotion shown by the image in not completely conclusive, thus lowering the validity of the study. 8 judges were assigned to confirm that the emotions in the eyes and the target words matched.
• Quantitative data (Reductionist). The use of quantitative data is a weakness as it is reductionist. Reductionist is when complex behaviors is reduced to simple numbers. Group 2 participants scored a mean score of 21.9 on the eye test while group 4 scored a mean of 30.9. The researcher is unable to provide further explanation just from the mean score as to why group 4 scored higher. The reasons for the particular choice and behaviour are not explored. Therefore, the data collected is reductionist

Question 20

explain the nature vs nurture debate’s relevance in this study?

Answer 20

The nature factor affecting the results of the study are whether they have AS/HFA or are normal. The nurture factors affecting the results of the study would be whether the child had been properly taught or not on how to recognize emotions correctly like normal individuals.

Question 21

why can’t young children be used in this study?

Answer 21

children that are normal or have AS/HFA both may not be able to observe and identify various eye expressions, especially complex ones.

Question 22

what was the sampling technique used?

Answer 22

opportunity and volunteer sampling

Question 23

what were some problems with the original study and how were they solved?

Answer 23

issue 1: there were more female eye pairs than there were male eyes.
solution 1: an equal number was used. allowing a controlled condition - judging the gender from the eyes.

issue 2: forced choice between two responses meant that only a narrow range of 17-25 correct responses out of 25 would be statistically above chance.
solution 2: forced choice remains but there were four response options

issue 3: target word and foil were always semantic opposite, making it too easy to guess.
solution 3: increased the level of difficulty by ensuring that the foil words had the same emotional valance as the target word.

issue 4: there may have been comprehension problems that might have contributed to an individual’s score.
solution 4: a glossary with all terms was included which was available for the p’s to use at all times.

Question 24

Baron-Cohen et al say that the Eyes Test only involves the first and not the second stage in the attribution of theory of mind. Describe both of these stages. [4]

Answer 24

Stage 1: attribution of relevant mental state (e.g. compassion)

Stage 2: inferring/inference of content of that mental state (e.g. compassion for her mother’s loss)

Question 25

the control group were much better on the eyes test than the experimental group (of high functioning autistics and people with Asperger syndrome). What does this tell us about theory of mind?

Answer 25

theory of mind normally helps to map mental states to facial expressions.
that first stage of theory of mind (attribution) requires identifying mental state from faces without a need to infer content.

Question 26

The study by Baron-Cohen et al (eyes test) compared Asperger syndrome/high- functioning autism (AS/HFA) and control groups. A graph was used to show the spread of eyes test scores in the control groups. Describe the general shape of this graph.[2]

Answer 26

Graph is bar chart showing distribution of scores on eyes test for groups 2 and 3.

symmetrical distribution/same both sides; highest point is in the middle / mean/median/mode is highest point; normal distribution.

Question 27

Describe the difference in results on the eyes test between the AS/HFA group and any of the controls. [2]

Answer 27

AS/HFA lower than all control groups.

Group 4 IQ matched controls higher than AS/HFA (30.9 cf 21.9)

Group 3 Students: all (28.0); males (27.3); females (28.6)

Group 2 General population: all (26.2); males (26.0); females (26.4)

(1 mark for ‘higher’ or ‘lower’; numbers with no description.

2 marks for identification of group/difference/numbers.

Numbers are not required for max mark. )

Question 28

Describe how the Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism (AS/HFA) participants were selected. [2]

Answer 28

Volunteer / self-selected sampling,
through adverts in UK national Autistic Society magazine (or equivalent support groups).

1 mark partial (either type of sampling or source), 2 marks full (e.g. either type of sampling and source, or sampling in detail or source in detail

Question 29

Describe how the normal adult (control) participants were selected. [2]

Answer 29

Opportunity sampling, from adult community/education classes (in Exeter)

from public library users (in Cambridge)

Question 30

Identify two of the four tests from the WAIS-R used to assess IQ in the AS/HFA group. [2]

Answer 30

Block design, vocabulary, similarities, picture completion

Question 31

Describe the overall score on this test for the AS/HFA group. [2]

Answer 31

In normal range, mean=115 (SD 16.1)

Question 32

Baron-Cohen et al. found a small but non-significant gender difference in the revised eyes test for the general population and student controls (groups 2 and 3).
State the gender difference they expected to find and why they expected to find this difference. [2] and What reason did Baron-Cohen et al. give for these results being non-significant? [2]

Answer 32

Females better – because trend for female superiority in previous version of test / because females generally have better theory of mind, better empathisers etc.

If the effect size is relatively small, the chance of detecting a sex difference would be low”/not a big difference, so unlikely to see it in a small sample

Question 33

why was the ceiling effect a problem in this study?

Answer 33

Because it narrows the range of results/it is harder to discriminate between participants so in this study, it would be hard to tell who was very good and who was fairly good at judging emotion

Question 34

Baron-Cohen et al (eyes test) provided a glossary of 93 words to help the participants to identify mental states. List four of these words. [4]

Answer 34

• amused
• relaxed
• alarmed
• ashamed
• grateful
• arrogant
• sarcastic
• terrified
• upset
• scared
• playful
  to list a few

Question 35

Baron-Cohen et al. used a pencil and paper (static) version of the eyes test but believe that a video (dynamic) version could be developed. Suggest an advantage of a static eyes test. [2]

Answer 35

• easy for researchers/participants to use so likely to obtain more participants, increasing the reliability of findings
• has been used many times before so known to be valid and reliable
• reliable because fewer things vary as (eyes) not moving

Question 36

Suggest an advantage of a dynamic eyes test. [2]

Answer 36

• more representative of actual facial expressions as we see people’s eyes in a context rather than a snapshot/so life-like i.e. valid/has more details about the eyes
• could control exactly how long each participant is exposed to each eye image, increasing reliability
• might be better at keeping the participant’s attention

Question 37

What did Baron-Cohen et al. conclude about social and non-social intelligence in adults with autism spectrum disorders? [2]

Answer 37

That adults with Autistic spectrum disorders have impaired theory of mind/impaired ability to detect the emotions of others/that the revised eyes test is able to detect subtle differences (in social intelligence) between individuals and that this is independent of general (nonsocial) intelligence

Question 38

Baron-Cohen et al. hoped that the revised eyes test would be better at detecting differences than the original eyes test. What did they hope would change about the distribution of scores? [2]

Answer 38

To remove the ceiling effect, so that the (normal) scores were not all clustered at the top of the range

Question 39

In what way was the revised test better at detecting differences than the original test? [2]

Answer 39

so it could discriminate smaller (individual) differences

not just detect extreme differences in performance

because there were more questions