Baron-Cohen

To test if high functioning autistic adults lacked a Theory of Mind or not.

To see if females performed better than males on the Theory of Mind tests.

Where the independent variable is no longer effecting the dependent variable. (it is no longer measuring theory of mind).

Quasi Experiment: Takes advantage of a naturally occurring independent variable.

Independent Variable - Characteristics of the participants/ the group they were in.

Dependent Variable - The performance on the Eyes Task (advanced test of theory of mind).

The ability to understand and predict what another person may be thinking or feeling.

The inability to read what others are thinking or feeling.

• Difficulties with social interaction.

• Difficulties with verbal and non-verbal communication.

• A lack of imagination.

• Social/Nurture - Poor parenting (NO EVIDENCE)

• Genetics/Nature - Not sure what but there IS a genetic link.

• MMR jab - A scare because the jab came before children were diagnosed (NOT TRUE as children can't be diagnosed from an early age, already had autism, nothing to do with jab).

First Order Test

• Sally puts her ball in the basket.
• Sally goes away.
• Anne moves the ball from the basket to her box.
• Where will Sally look for her ball?

Autistic children would be expected to say the box, as whatever they feel/think/know, they expect others to be the same.

• Simplistic.
• Designed to be passed by 'normal' six year olds.
• Adults with autism and a high/normal IQ may be able to pass it.

CEILING EFFECT

• 16 participants - 13 men, 3 women.

• High functioning Autism/ Asperger Syndrome.

• Normal IQ.

• Recruited through advertisements in the National Autistic Society Magazine and in clinics. (SELF SELECT SAMPLE - VOLUNTEERED)

• Gender Biased - unrepresentative of normal population - more women than men.

• Small Sample - less representative of whole population.

• Volunteered Participants - may share similar characteristics; helpful. not representative of whole population.

Equal number of men and women, example; 25 men and 25 women.

• No gender bias.

• Women would be expected to do better than men as normally they have a better theory of mind.

• The group as a whole would still be expected to have the worst results as they are the autistic group and to support the hypothesis they should lack a theory of mind.

• 50 participants - 25 men, 25 women. (age matched with group 1)

• 'Normal' Group - used as a comparison - no history of any psychiatric disorder.

• Normal IQ

• Selected randomly from the subject panel held in the University Department.

• 10 Participants - 8 men, 2 women. (age matched with groups 1 and 2)

• Tourette Syndrome - used to see whether it was purely those with autism who lacked a theory of mind or those with any mental disorder.

• Normal IQ

• Recruited from a referral centre in London.

2 Experimental Tasks

1) Happe's Strange Stories Task (an already established theory of mind task).

• Involved story comprehension.
• They key question in the task concerned either:
• a character's mental state/ way of being (the experimental condition)
• or physical events (the control condition).

Autistic group performed significantly worse than groups 2 and 3.

2) Eyes Task 

• Participants were shown 25 Black and White photos of the eye region.
• They were shown for 3 seconds.
• 2 forced choice answers: one correct emotion and it's semantic opposite, a foil word.

Autistic group performed significantly worse than groups 2 and 3.

Males performed worse than females.

2 Control Tasks

1) Gender Recognition Task

• Participants were shown the same 25 Black and White photos of the eye region that were used in the Eyes Task.
• Asked to identify gender.
• To see if Autistics recognised gender/faces, if they didn't then the Eyes Task would not test a theory of mind.

All participants passed this task. Gender recognition not a confounding variable.

2) Basic Emotion Recognition Task

• Participants were shown 6 Black and White photos of whole faces.
• They were asked to identify the basic emotion (happy, sad, shocked etc.)
• To see whether participants could understand basic emotion, if not could not complete Eyes Task.

All participants passed this task.

As predicted high functioning adults with autism/ Asperger syndrome had more difficulties with the Eyes Task than 'normal' adults and those with Tourette syndrome.

Those with Autism/Asperger syndrome did not have complete lack of TOM, just less than 'normal'.

Autism/ Asperger - 16.3 (mean score on eyes task)

'Normal' - 20.3 (males - 18.8, females - 21.8)

Tourettes - 20.4

• Lack of Theory of Mind is the core deficit of Autism.

• Males lack TOM skills in comparison to females.

• The Eyes Task is  valid measure of TOM because the results had a high correlation (concurrent validity) with Strange Stories task (an established measure of TOM). 

• Control: Intelligence, sex and developmental disorders controlled.

• Standardised: every participant tested in the same way.

• Quantitative: Collected quantitative data enabling researchers to carry out sophisticated statistical analysis of the songs.

• Ecological Validity: some participants tested at a lab, a strange surrounding. The Eyes Task itself is an unusual task which is much simpler than the demands of real life social situations. (in the real world stimuli not static).

• Clearer photographs
• Not black and white
• Whole faces
• Film clips
• Still not 100% ecologically valid as answering questions on such things is not an everyday occurrence

• Both used participants with deficits:

- Savage Rumbaugh used common chimps with poor language skills.

- Baron-Cohen used participants with Tourettes and Autistics.

• Both have useful practical applications.

• Savage Rumbaugh tested for language.

• Baron-Cohen tested for TOM.

• Savage-Rumbaugh was a longitudinal case study.

• Baron-Cohen used many participants i a snapshot study.