CA - Baron-Cohen et al - 1997

effect.Conditions:Autistic/Asperger’s NormalTourette’sI.V./D.V.I.V. - Type of people        -Gender in the normal groupD.V. - Able to correctly identify emotion.Procedure:Each was presented in random order to overcome order affect. Ppts tested individually in a quiet room in their house, lab at uni or researcher’s clinic.1. Eyes Task - Photos of the eye region of 25 different faces.                       - Standardised - Photos were all the same size, black and white, same eye region. (CONTROL)                       - Each photo shown for 3 seconds, then ppts had to choose from 2 mental state terms. They were either “basic”, like: ‘happy, sad’ or “complex”, like: arrogant, scheming.                       - Interrater reliability - Decision if answer was ‘correct’ was decided by 4 judges and 8 independent raters. 2. Happe’s Strange Stories Task - Group 1 and 3 tested to demonstrate validity of the Eyes task as test of ToM. If valid, then performance of Eyes Task should correlate with Strange Stories Task. (Example of concurrent validity).3. Control Tasks - Group 1 given 2 controls to check if difficulties with Eye Task were due to other problems.                             1.  Gender recognition of Eyes Task - Indentify gender of eyes. Such judgement doesn’t involve mindreading, but involves face perception. Therefore, this controls difficulties in that area.                            2. Basic Emotion Recognition Task (Emotion Task) - Judging photos of whole faces displaying 6 basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise. This was to check whether poor performance on Eyes Task could be linked to a problem recognising basic expression rather than lack of ToM.Controls:  Standardised photos - Same size, eye region, and all black and white. 2 Control tasks - To check if poor performance of Eyes Task in Group 1 was due to other factors. Results:Normal groups, females performed better significantly better than males.Normal and Tourette’s performed identically on Eyes Task.Normal males performed significantly better than Autistic/Asperger’s group.If ppt gave random answers without looking at eyes, Cohen et al calculated they should score: 15/25 = by chance resultsOnly 8/16 Asperger’s/Autistic scored above chance10/10 Tourette’s syndrome scored above chance50/50 normal scored above chanceCeiling affect as some in Tourette’s and normal’s group scored full marks; they could’ve performed better if it was possible.On Strange Stories Task no Tourette’s ppt made mistakes.Asperger’s/Autism made mistakes on Strange Stories Task.On control tasks Group 1 performed normally.Conclusion:Adults with Asperger’s/Autism were impaired in the Theory of Mind test.As only Asperger’s/Autism made errors on both the Eyes Task and Strange Stories, this validates the Eyes Task.Normal females are better than normal males on ToM test.Intelligence not linked with performance. (Some autistics had uni degrees. Evaluation:Research Method - Quasi exp = Ad. - I.V. occurs naturally. (types of people/ gender in normal group) Dis. - Not “true experiment”.                                                                                  - Repeated measures in different order to overcome order effect.Individual Differences - Autism/ Asperger’s Syndrome/ Tourettes/ Normal                                          |___________ Types of people _____________|Ecological Validity -   Low because ppts could only see eyes and irl, most people are used to see the whole face. Just eyes = not very real-like situation.Sample - All adults - Autistic/ Asperger’s -16 ppts (13m/3f) - Mean IQ 105                                  - Normal                       - 50 ppts (25/25) - IQ ≥ 85                                  - Tourette’s                  - 10 ppts (8m/2f) - Mean IQ 103.5Type of Data - Quantitative = Ad. - Easier to analyse. Dis. - Loss of rich data.Applications - Useful/ helpful for people educating and interacting with Autistic people. Help the Autistic. One Change - Sample - Same number of ppts in each sample group.                                        - Use variety of people with different cultures and socio background + other countries.