Baron-Cohen

What is the aim of this study?

To develop a new test for autistic adults to see whether they lacked theory of mind

What is the background for this study?

• Sally Anne Test

• Autism and theory of mind

• Happe (1994)

What is the Sally Anne test?

• A simple test to see if a person understands that others hold different beliefs from their own

• The test consists of Sally who places a marble in a basket then leaves the room, Anne then moves this marble somewhere else like a box

• People who do not lack TOM understand that when Sally comes back, she will look in the basket for the marble whereas people who are autistic and lack theory of mind will incorrectly think Sally will look in the box

• This test is not appropriate for adults as it is far too easy

What is autism and theory of mind?

• Autistic children usually have deficiencies in social interaction, language and non-verbal communication and have a restricted range of activities and interests

  • Symptoms in all these areas appear before 36 months of age

• Theory of Mind (TOM)- The child begins to understand other people, and predict what others are likely to do and believe. It is the ability to think about other people’s thoughts

Happe background

• Tested adults with autism and Aspergers syndrome

• Found that participants found mental state questions very difficult

What is the method and design of this study?

• Quasi experiment- Autism/Asperger’s (A/AS), Tourette’s (TS) and ‘normal’ p’s

• Independent measures design

What is the sample for this study?

• Group 1- 16- 13m, 3f

  • A-4

  • AS-12

• Group 2- 50 normal adults

  • 25m, 25f

• Group 3- 10 adults with Tourette’s syndrome

  • 8m, 2f

Study conducted in the UK in Cambridge

How was each group recruited for the study?

• Group 1- advert in national autistic magazine and clinical sources

• Group 2- Subject panel of university department comprised of the population of Cambridge

• Recruited from tertiary referral centre in London

Where was the study conducted?

Done in a quiet room at home, researcher’s clinic or lab at Cambridge Uni

What happened in the Eyes task?

• Shown 25 black and white standardised photos (10×15cm) of eye region of faces

• P’s asked to make a choice between two mental state words to understand what the person was thinking/feeling

What happened during the Happe’s strange stories task?

• Example of concurrent validity

• Pre-existing test

• P’s asked about the mental state of characters in the story and what they were thinking

• eyes test performance compared with this test- concurrent validity

What happened in the gender recognition task?

• Controlled for face perception, perceptual discrimination and social perception

• Ensures p’s can clearly identify gender

What happened during the basic emotion test?

• Six faces used

• Tested for the emotions happy, sad, angry, afraid, disgusted, surprised

• Used to determine if individuals with autism struggle with basic emotion recognition tests

What results were found from the study?

• Autistic/AS group scored 16.3 compared to 20.4 for normal on the eyes task

• A/AS made significantly more mistakes on the Happe’s strange stories task

• No difference in gender and emotion tasks

• Those who performed badly on the eyes test also performed badly on the Happe’s strange stories test

What conclusions can be drawn from this study?

• People with autism of Asperger’s syndrome have an impaired theory of mind

• People with autism lack advanced theory of mind

What is a strength of the research method?

• Quasi experiment- naturally occurring IV

• IV is naturally occurring so researcher bias is limited due to lack of manipulation

• IV- people with autism/AS, Tourette’s and neurotypical groups all born in their respective conditions

What is a weakness of the research method?

• Lack of control over EV’s- due to the nature of a quasi experiment

• Cannot control what condition one has so its impossible to truly establish cause and effect

• Other factors may affect performance on the eyes task- we do not truly know what is affecting the DV so internal validity decrease

What a strength of the data collected?

• Quantitative

• Quick and easy to analyse

• Can compare with different groups- 16.3 (A/AS) vs 20.3 (normal)

What is a weakness of the type of data collected?

• Quantitative data

• Lacks depth and detail and we lose personal participant insight into why p’s perform badly on the eyes test

• There may be other reasons that are missed just on participant results so decreased internal validity

Ethical guidelines

• Informed consent gained

• P’s tested at home which would be less distressing

• Performance on the eyes task might be distressing for some p’s

Strength in reliability?

• High in external reliability

• Study highly standardised so another researcher could repeat the research using the same r a similar sample to get the similar results

• B-C showed all participants the same 25 pictures of eyes for 3 eyes, all the same size (10×15 cm), all crops of the eye region

Weaknesses in validity?

• Lacks ecological validity

• Results are not generalisable outside of the study due to an artificial environment that is not representative of real life

• Not natural to go through 25 black and white pictures of crops of the eye and then be asked to pick between two mental states- not reflective of real life

Sample bias?

• Ethnocentric

• Only conducted in the UK in Cambridge

• Not sure if results would apply to other cultures

How does this study relate to the key principles of the individual differences area?

• Principle – individuals differ in their personality and behaviour, and it is possible to measure these differences​

• Aim – aimed to study differences in the ability to read emotions from eyes between adults with HFA/AS, Tourette's syndrome and those who are considered ‘normal’ (without a disorder)​

• Findings – autistic pps performed worse on the eyes task showing that individuals with autism lack theory of mind and struggle to process emotion in others ​

• ​Link – the differences in scores between the three groups shows that individuals differ in their behaviour ​

How does this study relate to the key theme of understanding disorders?

• Define – Gaining a deeper insight into different mental or physical illnesses a certain individual will have​​

• Aim – aimed to study differences in the ability to read emotions from eyes between adults with HFA/AS, Tourette's syndrome and those who are considered ‘normal’ (without a disorder)​

• Findings – autistic pps performed worse on the eyes task showing that individuals with autism lack theory of mind and struggle to process emotion in others ​

• Link – the experiment provides a deep understanding into differences in participants with different disorders such as autism ​