The Cognitive Approach- Baren Cohen

Question 1

What is the aim of the study?

Answer 1

To investigate if adults with autism or Asperger’s syndrome would be impaired in the theory of mind task, reading the mind in the eyes
- with the normal population,females would be significantly better in this test of theory of mind than males.

Question 2

What were the prior tests?

Answer 2

Studies show children struggled with the first order test, the Sally Anne test, and as they get older, the second test 1- strange stories task- but with adults with autism and AS can pass it, so a new test must be created.

Question 3

What type of experiment was this?

Answer 3

Quasi (natural experiment.)

Question 4

List the Participants? include: age,amount,gender

Answer 4

THREE GROUPS:
1.)16 pps, high functioning autism, Asperger’s syndrome (HFA/AS) All normal intelligence
13 males and 3 females aged 18-49 - mean = 26.6

2.) 50 Age matched controls -25 male , 25 female, 18-488, mean=30 , all no history of psychiatric disorder/presumed normal intelligence.

3.) 10 adults Tourette’s (age matched g1+2)
8 males, 2 females - mirrored sex ratio g1 aged 18-47 mean= 27.7

Question 5

what was the IV? changed

Answer 5

Type of participant used

Question 6

DV? Measured

Answer 6

Their performance on the task n

Question 7

What were the control tasks?`

Answer 7

1. )gender recognition= looking at same set of eyes but noting gender. social judgement, problems = face/perception
2. ) Basic emotion recognition task= judging photos of whole face display basic emotions- to check whether they don’t recognise basic emotion.

Question 8

What was the eyes task?

Answer 8

-Comprises of photographs of the eye region of 25 different male and female faces.
-each picture is shown for 3 seconds
-given forced choice question
between two mental stages printed under each picture
-The ‘FOIL’ word being the semantic opposite of the correct word.

Question 9

Results

Answer 9

AS+HFA=16.3
Normal adults= 20.3
Tourette's adults=20.4
Normal females=21.8
Normal males=18.8

Question 10

What are the strengths?

Answer 10

1. )Control of variables-intelligence, sex and developmental disorders, researchers could ensure that difference in achievers was to do with being AS/Autistic
2. ) Standardised - every PPS tested in same way - standardised photos etc. ensures IV affects the DV.
3. ) Collected quantitative data - scores enable researchers to do statistical analysis
4. )ratios are representative.

Question 11

What are the weaknesses?

Answer 11

1.)Ecological validity - tested in lab, real life stimuli - not static.
2.) Validity - may not actually be measuring theory of mind. Researchers say that the target words were mental states and they include cognitive mental states, therefore is more than just an emotion test.
Scores also mirrored results on strange stories task.
3.) Low population Validity - small sample size.
4.) Results deficit in eyes task was not mirrored in the two control tasks.
5.) Mean age all under 30 can’t generalise to rest of population.

Question 12

What does Theory of Mind mean?

Answer 12

Is the ability to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc. — to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one’s own.

Question 13

Improvements for baren Cohen?

Answer 13

More options on the eyes task than just two semantic opposites, which means it is harder to guess a correct answer