Cognitive - Baron Cohen Flashcards
What were the aims of this study?
- to see if adults with highly functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome are impaired on a test of reading emotions from the eyes
- to see if females are better than males at the tasks
What was this studies man focus?
The lack of theory of mind in patients with autism or aspergers
What research method was used?
Natural experiment in a lab
What sample method was used?
Volunteer
Describe the sample
Three groups:
1) the autistic group - 16 participants, 13 male, 3 female
2) the normal group - 50 participants, 25 male, 25 female
3) the Tourette’s group - 10 participants, 8 male, 2 female
All controlled on IQ, age and location (Cambridge)
What was the IV of the study
What syndrome they had, of normal, autism or Tourette’s
What was the DV
The results of the eyes test
How was the DV measured?
A score out of 25
List the controls in the experiment
- the two control groups of normal and Tourette sufferers
- the two control tests of the gender recognition and the basic emotions task
Describe the procedure
The procedure consisted of 4 tasks, two experimental and two control.
Eyes task - the participants were shown 25 pictures of people’s eyes, they had to then answer forces choice questions about what emotions they were displaying. There were 2 choices and they were opposites
Strange stories- had to identify the mental state of someone in a scenario
Gender recognition- from the 25 pictures in the eyes test, they had to guess the gender
Basic emotions recognition task- shown images of full faces and asked if they were happy, sad, angry, surprised, disgusted it afraid
Describe the results of the tasks
In the eyes task the autistic group scored a average of 16.3, with a range of 13-23. The normal group scored 20.3, with a range of 16-25. And the Tourette’s group scored 20.4, with a range of 16-25.
Overall the Autistic group performed worse on the eyes test.
The Tourette’s group didn’t loose any marks on the strange stories task.
Females did better overall than males.
And all autistic groups passed the control tasks
State one conclusion
In conclusion the autistic group seem to have a lack of theory of mind
Name a practical application of this study
Helps us to understand autistic perceptions, allowing for us to develop more suited ways to help and educate sufferers
Evaluate the ecological validity of this study
Overall it lacks ecological validity. This is because firstly it is in a lab environment, secondly the eyes test looks at only the eyes, when in reality we tell emotions from the whole face
Evaluate the ethics
On one hand it is extremely ethical. The ethics committee approved it and in some cases people were tested in their own homes so they were comfortable. On the other hand some may have felt stressed due to the activities and could have cause distress
