Paper 2 - Baron-Cohen et al on Autism

Question 1

What is theory of mind ?

Answer 1

The ability to accurately interpret mental states, beliefs, intents, desires, emotions and knowledge to one self and others.

Question 2

What 4 things does ASD affect ?

Answer 2

Social interaction: Difficulty with social relationships, may appear indifferent.
Social Communication: Difficulty with verbal and non verbal communication, not understanding tone/gestures.
Imagination: Difficulty developing interpersonal play and imagination, e.g. cant invent games up.
Theory of Mind: The ability to accurately interpret mental states, beliefs, intents, desires, emotions and knowledge to one self and others.

Question 3

What is Asperger’s syndrome ?

Answer 3

A mild form of Autism, highly functioning

Question 4

What is Tourette’s Syndrome ?

Answer 4

A syndrome that causes people to make involuntary sounds and movements called tics.

Question 5

What was the aim of this study ?

Answer 5

To find out whether individuals on the ASD had defects within theory of mind and to investigate any gender differences.

Question 6

What type of experiment was this study ?

Answer 6

Quasi experiment - the IV is naturally occurring, nothing has been manipulated.
Matched pairs design

Question 7

What was the IV of this study ?

Answer 7

Type of person: adult with autism, adult with Asperger’s, adult with Tourette’s, adult without ASD or Tourette’s.

Question 8

What is the DV of this study ?

Answer 8

Performance on eye test out of 25

Question 9

Where were the participants tested ?

Answer 9

In a quiet environment in their home or in a lab.

Question 10

What happened during task 1 ?

Answer 10

The pps had to pick out of two words which word best describes a matching photograph of eyes’ mental state, one of them was correct. The photographs were black and white, the same size and cropped above the eyebrows and at the bridge of the nose. E.g. concerned/ unconcerned and attraction/repulsion.

Question 11

What happened during task 3 ?

Answer 11

Control tests:

Gender recognition task. It was to assess general social perception. Participants were asked what gender the faces were bases on their eyes. The photos were in black and white, same size and cropped above the eyebrow to the bridge of the nose.

Basic emotional recognition task. Participants were asked to judge photos of whole faces which displayed 6 basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, afraid, disgust, and surprise).

Question 12

What happened during task 2 ?

Answer 12

Participants were presented with a short strange story and were asked questions about the story to evaluate their theory of mind.

Question 13

What were the results of the eye task ?

Answer 13

ASD mean score: 16.3/25
normal mean score: 20.3/25
Tourette’s mean score: 20.4/ 25

Question 14

Was there a relationship between IQ and ASD performance on the tasks ?

Answer 14

no

Question 15

What were the results for the gender recognition task ?

Answer 15

males mean score: 18.8
females mean score: 21.8

Question 16

Explain the sample in this study

Answer 16

Group one: 16 ASD (13 male, 3 female), normal intelligence and recruited through self selected sampling through the national autism magazine.
Group two: 50 normal people (25 male, 25 female) from Cambridge using random sampling
Group three: 10 Tourette’s (8:2 male: female ratio) normal intelligence recruited from London in snowball sampling technique.

Question 17

Where does this study stand in relation to the nature/nurture debate ?

Answer 17

Theory of mind may be genetic - nature.
It suggests that women have better theory of mind due to social roles - nurture

Question 18

What are the conclusions from this study ?

Answer 18

Adults with ASD were impaired on theory of mind despite having normal intelligence. This suggests that ASD is not due to low intelligence. Also it is not linked to frontal lobe processes as Tourette’s group didn’t have deficits in Theory of mind.

Question 19

Evaluate the reliability of this study.

Answer 19

The eye tasks were standardised and judged by a panel of judges. They were black and white, cropped above the eyebrows and at the bridge of the nose and the same size.

Question 20

Evaluate the research methods used in this study.

Answer 20

Strengths: The use of the control groups allowed for a baseline to judge the behaviour of the ASD groups. The Tourette’s group showed that even with neurological deficits they still had theory of mind, therefore we can conclude that theory of mind deficits is specific to ASD individuals. Matched pairs design means that age was controlled within participant variables, It could be that maturity plays a part in ToM deficits. The eye tests were objective and standardised.

Weaknesses: The study was a quasi experiment this means the Iv couldn’t be controlled so we cannot fully claim that the IV caused change in the DV. Also, participants completed tasks either in a lab or a quiet room in their house, this may mean that extraneous variables weren’t controlled - affecting validity. The eye test may not specifically be testing Theory of Mind, there is suggestions that the Sally-Anne test would be better suited.

Question 21

Evaluate the ethnocentrism of this study

Answer 21

The sample was entirely British however, the approach to understanding autism is a very western perspective. It may be that the higher rates of autism diagnosed in western countries might e explained by the fact that symptoms associated with ASD may be considered normal behaviours in some cultures but not in western cultures.

Question 21

Evaluate the sampling bias in this study.

Answer 21

Strengths: Previous research only looked at children, the sample showed that adults with ASD also have theory of mind deficits. This means that the deficit cannot be explained in terms of maturity. The self selected sampling method for the Autism group meant that pps are less likely to drop out.

Weaknesses: In group 1 there were 13 men and 3 women . As the study found that women were better on the eye task, the larger number of men may have had a negative effect on the results. The pps should have been matched in gender and age.

Question 22

Evaluate the data used in this study

Answer 22

The data collected was mainly quantitative, the eye task collected an objective, numerical score, making it easier to compare the performance of 3 groups on the test. However, this data may oversimplify the differences between the ASD pps and the ‘normal’ pps.
Some qualitative data was collected, related to the experience of some pps with ASD and watching movies. This offers more detailed and interesting insight into out understanding of autism. However it is subjective so it cannot be thoroughly compared to others’ experiences and not all pps took part in this.

Question 23

Evaluate the ethical considerations of this study.

Answer 23

As some of the pps are vulnerable, they cannot give fully informed consent despite the fact that they’re adults.
Pps being drawn to their theory of mind deficits may cause psychological harm as they feel targeted or embarrassed about their condition. This research is socially sensitive as it has the potential to have a negative impact on society in general due to the emphasis of deficits within ASD - business may not employ ASD individuals as they lack ToM. They may have less chance of being accepted into education. They may struggle with trying to make friendships.

Question 24

Evaluate the validity

Answer 24

The standardised photos and matched pairs design allowed for high control and accuracy.

Question 25

How is this study useful ?

Answer 25

It provides useful information about ASD which increases understanding about these disorders and may be used to develop interventions and treatments in the future.

Question 26

Where does this study stand in relation to the nature/ nurture debate ?

Answer 26

Baron cohen suggests that Tom deficits is genetic for people with ASD - nature.
However, the explanation that girls have better emotional recognition is due to their social roles gives a nurture explanation

Question 27

What were the results in relation to the strange stories task ?

Answer 27

No pps with Tourette’s syndrome made any mistakes.
The pps with ASD were significantly weak.