Baron-Cohen - Individual differences area Flashcards
What is a theory of mind (TOM)?
- It is a cognitive mechanism in our brain
- It is the ability to recognise that we all have different mental states, knowledge, imagination and emotions
What is 1st order TOM?
It allows us to make guesses about other people’s thoughts and feelings and therefore predict what they will do
What is 2nd order TOM?
Allows us to think about a second person’s thoughts and feelings and therefore predict what they will do
What was a previous TOM test that involved dolls?
The Sally-Anne test
Describe the Sally-Anne test in three bullet points
- Designed for 6-year-olds
- Two dolls (Sally and Anne)
- Participants are asked 4 questions, the critical belief question tests ToM
What is the term, ‘Ceiling effect’?
- The term is a measurement limitation that occurs when the highest possible score or close to the highest score on a test or measurement instrument is reached
- Thereby decreasing the likelihood that the testing instrument has accurately measured what it intended to measure
Why can’t the Sally-Anne test be used for Autism in adults?
- Sally-Anne test is designed for 6-year-olds
- Applying it to adults with autism wouldn’t be complex enough
- It would only demonstrate that the adults have TOM skills of a six-yr old
How does the Sally-Anne test produce a ceiling effect
- Data cannot take on a value higher than some ceiling
- Test only measures abilities of a 6 yr old
- Therefore, not the abilities of a 6 yr old and not the abilities of where an adult should be if they had a fully functioning TOM
Why has evidence not come about?
Usual tests to assess TOM have a ceiling effect in developmental terms corresponding to a mental age of 6yrs old
What did Happé (1994) find when she tested adults with autism or AS on her advanced TOM task?
Found that her participants had more difficulty with her mental state stories (Happes strange stories) than matched controls
What did Baron-Cohen do based on Happes research?
Baron-Cohen built on Happés research by using an adult test to assess TOM competence in high-functioning adults with AS or autism
What fundamental implications arise from autistic individuals failing to lack a TOM
Fundamental implications arise for communication, where making sense of other’s inentions, autistic individuals cannot understand what is being said - inferred/intended
How do AS individuals differ/similar from those with autism?
- AS show the same characteristics as autism
- They are of average/above average intelligence
- Appear to have good communication skills, though it may not be the case
What was Baron-Cohen’s aim?
Baron-Cohen aimed to extend Happé’s research and use a test more appropriate to assess TOM in people with HFA or AS.
What new test was developed?
- Eyes Task
- Aimed to assess mind-reading but Baron-Cohen et al argues that this is the same as TOM.
Describe the HFA/AS sample (6BP’s)
- 16 individuals
- 13 males, 3 females
- HFA - 4
- AS - 12
- Normal intelligence
- Autism affects more men
Describe the Normal age-matched adults
- 50 participants
- 25 males, 25 females
- Age matched
Describe the TS sample
- 10 adults with TS
- 8 males, 2 females
- Normal intelligence
- Tourettes affects more men
How were the HFA/AS sample recruited?
- Volunteer
- Recruited through an advert in the National Autistic magazine and a variety of clinical sources
How were the Normal adults recruited?
- Random
- Drawn from the subject panel of Uni department compromising of the general pop of Cambridge
- Excluded members from the Uni
How were the TS adults recruited?
- Volunteer
- Recruited from a tertiary referral centre in London
What was the experimental method?
Quasi experiment
What experimental design?
- Matched pairs design (age + intelligence)
- Repeated measures design
What was the IV?
The type of person likely to have TOM deficits (adults with high functioning autism/AS, normal adults, and adults with TS
What was the DV?
The performance, score out of 25, on the eyes task
How was the Eyes task measured?
- Measured by showing each P, 25, black and white, standardised photos of the eye region of the face (m+f)
- Asked them to make a forced choice between two mental state words (target + foil) to best describe what the person was feeling/thinking
What study was this?
Snapshot study
What four tasks were presented in random order to all of the P’s?
- Eyes Task
- Happes Strange Stories
- Gender recognition of eyes task (c)
- Basic recognition task (c)
Why was Happes strange stories used in this study?
- It tested physical and mental states of characters in the stories
- It was used to compare an old test (Happe) with BC’s eye task for concurrent validity
What did the Gender Recognition Task involve?
- Identifying the gender of the eyes used in the eyes task
- The task controlled for face perception, perceptual discrimination, and social perception
What happened/ what was the purpose of the Basic Emotion Recognition task?
- Involved judging photographs of whole faces displayinng basic emotions identified by Ekman (1992)
- Task was done to check whether difficulties on the Eyes Task were due to difficulties with basic emotional recognition
How were invidiuals tested? (place)
- In a quiet room either in their home (standardisation?)
- Researcher’s clinic
- Or researchers’ laboratory at Cambridge University (authority?)
What was the mean score on the ET for HFA/AS?
- 16.3
- Range = 13-23
What was the mean score on the ET for Normal?
- 20.3
- Range = 16-25
What was the mean score on the ET for TS?
- 20.4
- Range = 16-25
What did the results from the HSS show about HFA/AS individuals?
- They made significantly more errors on the SST than either of the other groups
- (concurrent validity proves accurary of the results)
Were there any differences on the Gender and Emotion control tasks?
No differences between the groups
Was there a sig correlation between IQ and performance on the ET?
No significant correlation between IQ and performance
On HSS, who made errors - what did it show vs those who didn’t
- HFA/AS individuals made many errors
- They were significantly impaired
- TS adults made no errors
Contrary to previous research, what do these results show?
These results seem to provide evidence that adults with HFA/AS do possess an impaired TOM
Since some of the A/AS group help Uni degrees and were all normal intelligence what did these results suggest?
TOM deficits are independent of general intelligence
What did the ET consist of?
- Photographs of the eye region of 25 different faces
- Male and female
- 15 x 10 cm
Where were the photos taken from?
Magazines
Why were the photos black and white and taken from the same region of the face?
Control extraneous variables
What could have been an EV?
If the pictures were coloured, they may have appeared more positive and the actual expression might have been ignored
How long were pictures shown for?
3 seconds
