Week 6 - Autism

Question 1

Relevant Background: Metzoff, What is neurodiversity?

Answer 1

Meltzoff: (1995)
–> Adult tries but fails to perform act on an object. Infant imitates what adult was attempting to do rather than what they did
o Shows that imitation has developed - beginnings of theory of mind

Neurodiversity
–> Denotes VARIATION in cognitive functioning
(Neurominority - group who share the same divergence)

Question 2

Relevant Background: What is autism? What were the early approaches to autism?

Answer 2

Autism: DSM-V
A) Persistent deficits in social communication
B) Restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour

Approaches to Autism
1. First described by Kanner –> children’s inability to relate themselves to people and situations (usually low functioning and impaired intelligence)

2. Asperger –> Similar conclusions to Kanner that the fundamental disorder of autistic individuals is social relationship limitation
   –> Conceptualised ASPERGER AUTISM (milder, usually more high functioning)
3. Wing and Gould
   –> Autistic children have difficulty with social interaction, communication, and imagination (known as the Triad of Impairments)

Asperger and Kanner - Biological basis for autism - lacks empirical evidence

Further Developments

4. Emphasis on ENVIRONMENT - emotionless parenting, refrigerator mother
5. 1980s Cognitive Revolution
   –> Focus on perception, memory and language (Baron-Cohen)

Question 3

Experiment: Aims

Answer 3

To investigate whether autistic children can complete a theory of mind task

ToM: the ability to attribute mental states to others, which allows us to think about why people do the things that they do

Question 4

Experiment: Participants

Answer 4

20 Autistic Children (6-16)
14 Down’s Syndrome Children (6-17)
27 Normal Children (3-6yrs)

Question 5

Experiment: Methods

Answer 5

Sally Anne Task - Wimmer and Perner (1983)
–> To be used for young children
–> Sally puts ball in her basket
–> Sally goes away
–> Anne moves the ball to her box
–> Where will Sally look for her ball

Question 6

Experiment: Procedure

Answer 6

1. All participants did the Sally-Anne Task
2. All participants asked three questions
   A) False belief question (diagnostic): Where will Sally look for the marble
   B) Reality question (control): Where is the marble really
   C): Memory question (control): Where was the marble in the beginning

Question 7

Findings

Answer 7

Memory and Reality Questions: all children all correct responses

False Belief Question
–> Down’s and Normal - similar results (85-86% correct)
–> Autistic - 80% failed (pointed to where marble really was - box)

Conclusions Made
- Selective impairment in ToM is independent of general intelligence
- Children with ASD do not understand that their belief and Sally’s belief will be different (inability to represent mental states in other)

One of the first cognitive accounts of ASD
–> one hypothesis suggested was a ‘mindblindness hypothesis’ - autistic persons have difficulty in starting up the neurocognitive mechanisms responsible for mentalising

Question 8

Debate: Criticisms

Answer 8

1. ToM only focuses on social features of autism
   –> Does not emphasise restricted interests, insistence of sameness, and enhanced abilities
   TWO additional cognitive accounts…autistic people have:
   A) Executive disfunction hypothesis: difficulty in planning how to achieve goals - tendency to fixate on one activity (Ozonoff)
   B) (Firth and Happe) Weak Central Coherence - difficulty combining several pieces of information to form an overall understanding of issues
   An alternative account: Monotropism
   –> We are all interested in many things and our interests help direct our attention
   –> A monotropic mind: fewer interests tend to be aroused at one time, harder to deal with things outside the attention tunnel
2. ToM deficits are NOT specific to autism: are also found in..
   - schizophrenia
   - depression
   - conduct disorders
   - right hemisphere damage
3. ToM deficits not universal to autism
   –> Not all autistic children failed the Sally-Anne task

Question 9

Debate - Bowler: Second-Order FBT

Answer 9

Bowler’s research found that young autistic adults succeeded in second-order FBT, suggesting that either….
1. Autistic individuals show delays in development rather than a lack of ToM
2. Surface level performance should be distinguished from actual competence –> possibility that autistic individuals who pass ToM tests use DIFFERENT COGNITIVE STRATEGIES
–> Need more advanced tasks (eg. Strange stories, RTME)

Question 10

Controversy: Alternative Evidence

Answer 10

Milton’s Double Empathy Problem: found that both autistic and normal people beneit from have an interaction partner with the same diagnostic status when performing an information transfer task
–>Autistic people share information with other autistic people as effectively as non-autistic people do
o Suggests that it is NOT A DEFICIT just a different way of thinking

Social Orientation Hypothesis:
–> Can social cognition deficits be explained by a lack of social orientation
Performance may be affected by: relevance of social cue to task, explicitness of instructions, interest of stimulus for the participant

Question 11

Legacy and Impact

Answer 11

Paper by Gernsbacher and Yergeau (2019) completely debunks BCs original paper - fails empirically, specificity, replicability and predictive validity (essentially says its an unreliable paper)

Scientific Contributions: Impact on research areas in developmental psychology, imitation, prosocial behaviour, philosophy of mind

Empathising-Systemising: Baron-Cohen
–> Newer theory to account for non-social features: the discrepancy between empathising and systemising determines likelihood of being autistic (ISSUE: led to myth that autistic people lack empathy)

Applied Contributions: understanding autism, neurodiversity movements (striving for social acceptances)