Baron Et Al Flashcards
(30 cards)
What was Baron testing?
High functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome’s theory of mind.
What is theory of mind?
Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states such as beliefs, intense desires, pretending, and knowledge to oneself and others.
When was the study conducted?
1997
What is autism?
A mental condition, present from early childhood, characterised by great difficulty of communicating and forming with other people and in using of language and abstract thinking. (TOM)
What are the three traids of impairments?
Difficulties with social communication.
Difficulties with social interaction.
Difficulties with social imagination.
Out of the three traids of impairment which one does barons study focus on those with autism?
Social communication - understanding the meaning of others without them actually say in their feelings.
What is ass Asperger syndrome?
They show the same characteristics as autism but are of average or above average intelligence and appear to have a good communication skills, though this may not actually be the case.
Why is there no conclusive evidence that show that individuals with high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome have an intact theory of mind?
The used tests which assess theory of mind have a ceiling effect as the tests are designed for a mental age of about six. Therefore although existing theory of mind tests are challenging the six-year-olds, they are far too easy for adults who all pass pass even though they may not have a fully functioning theory of mind.
What was the research method of the study?
Quasi/natural experiment.
What other study did barons study build upon?
Happe - (1994) tested adults with autism or Asperger syndrome on an advanced theory of mind task and found her participants had more difficulty with her mental state stories then matched controls.
What was IV?
How was it operationalised?
The type of person likely to have theory of mind deficits (adults with high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome, ‘normal’ adults and adults with Tourette syndrome).
BIV was naturally occurring so could not be manipulated or controlled by the researchers.
What was the DV?
How was it operationalised?
The performance (out of 25) on the eyes task; measured by showing each participant 25, black and white, standardised photographs of the eye region of faces (male and female) and asking them to make a forced choice between two mental state words to best describe what the person in the photograph was feeling or thinking.
What experimental design was the study?
Independent, Matched pairs design because the group of normal adults and the group with TS where age-matched with the group of adults with autism or AS.
What were the sample statistics?
Group 1 - 16 individuals with either high functioning autism or AS.
Group 2 - 50 normal aged matched adults.
Group 3 - 10 adults with TS also age-matched with groups one and two.
What were the four tests used?
The eyes task.
The strange stories task.
The two control tasks: gender recognition of eyes task and basic recognition task (Only completed by those with autism/AS).
All were presented in random order to all participants.
What was the purpose of the ‘reading of the mind eyes task’ in Barons study?
It’s shows whether adults with autism have big difficulties with social communication , not just children (shown in Sally- Anne study).
What is the purpose of the ‘strange stories’ task in Barons study?
Validate the results from the eyes task and look more in depth of TOM in autistic adults.
What was the purpose of the ‘gender recognition’ task in Barons study?
(Doesn’t require TOM)
The task tested for face perception, not reading the mind.
What was the purpose of the ‘basic emotion recognition’ task in Barons study?
To check whether difficulties on the eyes task where due to difficulties with basic emotional recognition.
What was the strange stories task?
Participants were presented with a story and had to make inferences about a character is mental state.
What was the gender recognition task?
Identifying the gender of the eyes.
Tested face perception.
What was the basic emotion recognition task?
Judging photos of whole faces displaying basic emotions.
What were the mean scores (out of 25) from all three groups following the eyes task?
Autism/AS = 16.3 'Normal' = 20.3 TS = 20.4
What results from the other three tasks?
Those with autism/AS made many errors in Happes strange stories task. Those with TS made no errors.
There were no differences between the groups on both the gender and emotion control tasks.
