Baron-Cohen's study of advanced theory of mind

Question 1

What is the background for this study?

Answer 1

Children with autism were already shown to specifically lack theory of mind
=> The tests used to establish this e.g. Sally Ann are only suitable for children
=> This is because they are too simplistic for autistic adults
=> It was not known whether a lack of ToM was a core deficit in autism

Baron-Cohen wanted to test whether the new eyes test is a valid method to test ToM. Happe’s strange stories has already been proven as a good measure (understanding mental states of characters in stories)
(minor point)

Question 2

What is the aim of this study?

Answer 2

1. To find out whether adults with high functioning autism and Asperger syndrome specifically lack ToM
2. To find out whether typical males and females differ in their ToM skills

Question 3

How was the research method of this study like?

Answer 3

Quasi - IV could not be manipulated by researcher (autistic or not autistic)
Matched pairs design

IV: Whether P’s had autism or Asperger syndrome, Tourette syndrome or no clinical condition
DV: Number of mental states identified correctly from 25 black and white eye strips in the eyes task
=> Age matched
=> Clinical P’s had at least average intelligence to prevent lack of intelligence to act as extraneous variable

Question 4

How was data collected?

Answer 4

Scores on the eyes task, strange stories task, and the control tasks: gender recognition and basic emotion recognition

Question 5

Describe the sample of the study

Answer 5

3 groups:
1. 16 Autism and Asperger syndrome (13 males) (3 females)
=> Normal intelligence
=> Recruited through an advert in the magazine and the doctors’ clinics
2. 10 Tourette syndrome adults (8 males) (2 females)
=> Normal intelligence
=> Recruited from a referral centre in London
3. 50 normal adults (25 males and females)
=> Age-matched
=> Randomly selected from a SUBJECT POOL for the general adult population of Cam