to find out why adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social relationships and to develop an advanced test for theory of mind in adults with autism
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what type of experiment is it?
natural experiment
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what type of research method is used?
matched pairs design
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what was the independent variable of the experiment ?
normal, autistic or Tourette's
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what was the dependent variable of the experiment?
performance on the eye task
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what was the sample of the experiment ?
three groups of participants, 16 autistic ( asperger 13m, 3f) 50 normal ( 25m, 25f) and 10 tourette's ( 8m, 2f)
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how were they put together
matched on age and normal intelligence
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how were they chosen?
volunteer samples from clinical groups
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what was the procedure of the experiment?
25 photos of eyes ( 15x10cm) balck and white were each shown for 3 seconds, participants tested individually were asked a forced choice question e.g. which word best describes how the person is feeling
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what controls were put in place?
all participants were asked to identify the emotion in full faced photos ( ekman categories), all participants asked to identify the gender of each of the 25 eye photos
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what were the findings from the experiment?
the autistic adults were less likely to identify the correct target than the other two groups, females were better at reading minds from eyes than males
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what conclusions are made from the study?
there is evidence for subtle ' mind reading' deficits in intelligent adults on the autistic spectrum
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what does Baron- Cohen suggest?
that the eye task is a ' pure theory of mind test' for adults because the task does not require an understanding of what the persons whose are eyes are shown is doing
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what type of data was collected?
Quantitative
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what does the experiment lack?
ecological validity
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what was a strength of the method used?
It was a highly controlled experiment
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what was a weakness of the method used?
investigator effects may have meant that the researcher unconsciously influenced the participants choice of words through their body language
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
what type of experiment is it?
Back
natural experiment
Card 3
Front
what type of research method is used?
Back
Card 4
Front
what was the independent variable of the experiment ?
Back
Card 5
Front
what was the dependent variable of the experiment?
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