BARON-COHEN

Question 1

BACKGROUND
What is autism?

How is it developed?

Answer 1

1. A lifelong, developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people, and how they experience the world around them.
2. Genetics or Developmental (in the womb)

Question 2

Define theory of mind?

Answer 2

The ability to understand that other people have their own plans and points of view.

Question 3

What were the tests for theory of mind? (3)
Explain them?

Answer 3

1. Sally-Anne Test (sally puts her block into a box + leaves. Then Anne takes the block and puts it into the basket. The child is asked where the block is. If they lack theory of mind, they say the basket).
2. False-Belief Test (A child is asked what inside a crayon box, they think its crayon, its a candle. When asked what snoopy would see, if they lack theory of mind, they would say candles).
3. Strange stories task (reader is asked about the character’s mental state).

Question 4

AIM
what’s the aim of the study?

Answer 4

1. investigate if high functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome would be impaired on a theory of mind test called the ‘reading the mind in the eyes task’.

• they were also interested to find out if females would be better than males on the task.

Question 5

Describe the sample? (3 groups)

control or experimental?

Sampling method?

Answer 5

Group 1: experimental.
- 16 people with autism or Asperger’s.
- Self-selective (advert in a magazine).

Group 2: control.
- 50 ‘normal’ age-matched adults.
- Random (drawn from general population).

Group 3: control
- 10 people with Tourette’s syndrome.
- Opportunity (recruited from referral centre).

Question 6

Why did Baron-Cohen use adults with Asperger’s syndrome and Tourette’s syndrome?

Answer 6

Because of the similarities between them all as they are all developmental disorders experienced since childhood.

Question 7

Research method?
Research design?

Answer 7

1. Quasi.
2. Matched pairs (age match).

Question 8

IV?
DV?

Answer 8

1. IV is naturally occurring - whether participant is likely to have theory of mind deficits.
2. the performance (score out of 25) on the eyes task.

Question 9

PROCEDURE
Describe the procedure? (the eyes task) (foil/target word)

Answer 9

The eyes task compromises of photographs of the eye region of 25 different males/females faces.
Each picture was shown for 3 seconds and participants were asked “Which word best describes what this person is thinking or feeling?”. Participants had to chose between 2 words.

Target word = correct word.
Foil word = wrong word.

2. researchers then administered 2 control tasks to group 1 - Gender recognition task + basic emotion task.

Question 10

FINDINGS?

Describe the mean results for group 1 on the eyes task compared to group 2/3?

Compare the male and females scores?

Answer 10

Group 1 = 16.3
Group 2 = 20.3
Group 3 = 20.4

Males = 18.8
Females = 21.8

Question 11

EVALUATION

Research method? (+/-)

Data? (+/-)

Answer 11

RESEARCH METHOD:
+ = high ecological validity (natural environment/home - no social desirability).
- = no direct manipulation of IV.