8829407
Description
Flashcards by Dhara Bechra, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Dhara Bechra
over 7 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| Baron-Cohen et al. (1997) - Autism in Adults- Theory of Mind | Adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social relationships. Research using theory of mind (TOM) tasks found that children diagnosed as autistic are not able to reason what another person is thinking. Example of TOM test: 'Sally Anne' |
| Aims & Research Questions | To investigate why adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social friendships. To develop an advanced test for theory of mind in adults with autism. |
| Research Method | Quasi Experiment Matched Pairs Design IV: whether pp's were normal, autistic or had Tourette's DV: how they performed on the eyes task |
| Sample | 3 groups: 16 autistic (13 male, 3 female) 50 normal (25 male, 25 female) 10 tourette's (8 male, 2 female) |
| Procedure | Eyes task: 25 photos of eyes, 15x10 cm each- black and white, shown for 3 seconds. PP's tested individually, asked a forced-choice question. Task was created by selecting magazine photos. 4 judges generated target words. e.g target = calm, foil = anxious. |
| Procedure (2) | The target is the correct answer and the foil is the opposite. As a control, target presented randomly on both left and right. Control: when generating targets and foils, photos shown to a panel of 8 adults who didn't know there was a 'right or wrong' and 100% agreement with target. |
| Procedure (3) | Control task included: GENDER IDENTIFICATION: all PP's asked to identify gender of each 25 photos. BASIC EMOTION RECOGNITION TASK: all PP's asked to identify emotion in 6 full-face photos- happy, sad, angry, afraid, surprise, digust. |
| Results | The autistic adults were less likely to identify the correct target than the normal or Tourette's group. The normal and Tourette's scores were significantly better than the autistic group scores. |
| Results (2) | Females were better at reading minds from eyes than males. Normal males were significantly better than normal males. |
| Conclusion | Evidence for subtle 'mindreading' deficits in intelligence in adults on the autistic spectrum. The eyes task is a 'pure theory of mind test' for adults because there is no context - eyes task does not require an understanding of what the person is doing in photos. |
| Evaluation | Highly controlled but has low ecological validity - task doesn't occur daily. Quantitative data collected - easy to compare, doesn't give reasons. PP's were volunteers so not deceived and experienced no distress. Procedure was standardised so reliable. |
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