Baron-Cohen

• Background: briefly explain what autism is

  Baron-Cohen examined those with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Autism is a lifelong disorder in which there are difficulties with communication, imagination and social interaction.
• Background: briefly explain what ToM is

  Another universal feature of ASD is having an impaired theory of mind which is the ability to not only understand that they themselves have their own thoughts and feelings, but that other people have a different set of thoughts and feelings.
• Background: briefly outline the Sally Anne test

  Prior tests for ToM include the Sally-Anne task where children up to the age of 6 witnessed a doll called Sally place a marble in her basket and Anne then moves the marble into her bowl when Sally isn't present. The children were then asked where Sally would look for the marble. Findings show that autistic children perform worse than controls and those with Down Syndrome.
• Background: briefly explain the Happe's Strange Stories Test and why this inspired Baron-Cohen's research

  Happe conducted a more complex 'Strange Stories' task to test ToM, whereby children (8-9) listened to ambiguous stories and judge the mental state of the character. Autistic children were found to have difficulty doing so. Baron-Cohen wanted to develop a more complex test to assess ToM in adults, so he created the 'Eyes Task'.
• Aim

  to investigate whether high functioning adults with autism and Asperger Syndrome would struggle with a new + more difficult test for ToM known as the 'Eyes Task'
• Sample

  
• Why was the Tourette's group used

  Because its similar to autism in that both are childhood psychiatric disorders believed to be associated with abnormalities in the frontal region of the brain and those with either disorder are likely to have had disrupted schooling + peer interactions.

  Comparing the Tourette's group with the autistic group would allow Baron-Cohen to see whether an impaired ToM is unique to those with autism or people with similar psychiatric disorders such as Tourette's
• Strengths + weaknesses of sample/study so far

  +represent those in adulthood = can see if deficit in ToM is present in adults

  -autism group is gender bias towards men - 13m, 3f

  +excludes members of Cambridge uni - likely have above average IQ = controls for indv diffs = high IV

  +Ps matched on age + intelligence = controls for indv diffs affecting ToM e.g. IQ = high IV

  sampling methods = random, opportunity, volunteer
• Variables

  • IV = whether Ps have been diagnosed with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome (group 1), were 'normal'/had no disorders (group 2), or had been diagnosed with Tourettes syndrome (group 3)
  • DV = the No of correct answers out of 25 on the Eyes Task
• Research method

  quasi experiment

  artificial setting - lab at Cambridge Uni

  +naturally occurring IV means we can investigate behaviours that would otherwise be unethical to manipulate

  -cannot randomly allocate across groups - naturally belong to one condition = risk of indv diffs e.g. general/natural emotional intelligence
• Experimental design

  independent measures design
• Initial Findings

  
• Why did the study test groups 2 and 3 when the study is interested in individuals with autism

  
• Procedure

  • all Ps were tested individually in a quiet room either in their own home, in the researchers' clinic or in the researcher's laboratory at Cambridge University
  • Ps had to complete 4 tasks within the study and all tasks were presented in a random order to remove order effects (counterbalancing - control for fatigue = high IV)
• Procedure for Eyes Task

  
• Procedure for The Strange Stories Task

  
• Control Tasks

  
• Results: performance on the Eyes Task

  Autism/AS = mean 16.3/25

  Normal = mean 20.3/25

  Tourette syndrome = 20.4/25

  Lack of ToM is specific to autism
• Results

  • normal females performed significantly better than normal males on the Eyes Task (mean 21.8 vs 18.8) but the normal males were significantly better than the autism/AS group (mean 18.8 vs 16.3)
  • results for the strange stories task indicated that the autism/AS group were significantly impaired on the task compared to the Tourette syndrome group who did not make any mistakes (100%) = high concurrent validity
  • the gender recognition task - no significant differences were found between the groups
  • the basic emotional recognition task - no significant difference between the groups
• Findings and conclusions

  
• Research method evaluation

  
• Sample evaluation

  
• Quantitative data evaluation

  
• Qualitative data evaluation

  
• Validity evaluation pt1

  
• Validity evaluation pt2

  
• Ethics evaluation

  
• Reliability evaluation

  
• Section A Qs

  
• Key theme Q

  
• Link to approach Q