Term
| social cognition is about understanding the mental states of others; working out what others are thinking (Theory of mind) |
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| social cognition is about cognitive mechanisms in social interaction |
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| social cognition is about processing information about others |
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| Empathising Systemising Model |
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Definition
Baron-Cohen (2002, 2003)
-general framework for understanding sex differences in social cognition
-two cognitive dimensions that define male and female brain types: systemising (understanding and predicting the law governed inanimate universe; computers, systems) and empathising (understanding the social world) |
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| Empathising is a central component of normal social functioning |
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Definition
| Charbonneau and Nicol (2002) |
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| Empathising is important in maintaining social relationships |
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| drive to understand the thoughts and feelings of others and to respond with appropriate emotion |
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Predicting behaviours of systems rather than people
the drive to design and build systems
analysing variables in a system
predicting the 'behaviour' of a system and controlling it |
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BPS (2008)
characterised by difficulties in social development and the development of communication; strong narrow interests and repetetitive behaviour
-Our understandings are based on a small percentage of autistic patients (high functioning ones)
75% are intellectually impaired (not used in studies) |
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Definition
Baron-Cohen (1995)
-children with ASC are delayed in developing theory of mind |
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| Evaluation of mindblidness theory |
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Definition
+Can make sense of social and communication difficulties
+universal in applying to all individiduals on the ASC
-Cannot account for non-social features |
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| Empathy also involves an emotional response to another person's state of mind not just understanding what goes on in someone else's mind |
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| Most people on the ASC report that they are puzzled by how to respond to another person's emotions |
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| However, mindblidness may also be present in other disorders such as schizophrenia therefore not only a unique characteristic of autism |
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| Children with classic autism score above average on a test of how to figure out how a Polaroid camera works even though they have difficulties figuring out people's thoughts and feelings |
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Definition
Leslie and Thaiss (1992)
Perner et al. (1989) |
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Term
| The ES model can explain an inability to 'generalise' in ASC ; what you would expect if the person is trying to understand each system as being unique |
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| Diagnostic ratio of ASC of males to females is 4 to 1 |
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| Extreme Male Brain Theory |
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Definition
| Baron Cohen (2002) developed the theory due to sex differences in systemising and empathising |
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| ASC people are hyper-systemisers (interested in rule bounded non-human systems) |
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| This suggests that only males sacrifice empathising for systemising? It does not seem to be able to account for why women develop autism |
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| Sampling of amniotic fluid; the lower the fetal testosterone the higher the ability to empathise (measured by eye contact and quality of social relationships 6 to 8 years later) --> support for EMB |
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| 200 mothers who had amniocentesis completed questionnaires about their child's behaviour (focusing on traits common to ASC); found that the higher the testosterone level the more likely for a 6 to 10 year old to have some autistic characteristics (however, tested with ASC like symptoms rather than official diagnosis) |
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| however, if fetal testosterone levels did indicate the likelihood of developing autism, why are other body areas not affected by the high levels of testosterone? |
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| Newborns orient to faces more than other objects, including face-like patterns ; more geometrically correct faces than those that have been rearranged ; from birth we are paying attention to others thus facilitating social cognition |
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Definition
| Johnson and Morton (1991) |
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Term
social preference in human neonates;
real face vs mechanical mobile
-male newborns looked for longer at the mobile while females looked longer at the face
-Male preference for object perception and female preference for face perception? |
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| Preference for mechanical or social stimuli at such an early stage does not necessarily mean that those preferences will be reflected in the child's ability to process (i.e empathise or systemise) such stimuli later in life |
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| There have been inconsistent findings in that area. Some research found no innate predisposition towards mechanical or social stimuli. Perhaps social conditioning effect (how a male or female child is being treated by a parent_ is in play |
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| The eyes are the window to the soul; eyes are a social cue for understanding the internal states of others |
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| 70% or more of our fixation when looking at someone's face is devoted to the eyes |
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Definition
| Walker-Smith et al. (1977) |
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Had neonates look at 2 different pictures (eyes closed and eyes open)
-showed early sensitivity to eye direction
-looked more at 'eyes open' image |
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reflexive orienting of attention to the gaze direction of others in males and females; also measured degree of autism
-Gaze direction varied in computer simulated faces and a target would appear in either side of the face.
-Females showed a stronger cuing effect from the gaze of others versus males (even though everyone's reaction was faster when target and gaze direction were congruent)
-Higher AQ scores were associated with a reduced magnitude of the cuing response to the gaze of others |
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face was shown with normal gaze polarity and then pts were presented with pictures of reversed polarity of the eyes and were told to determine the gaze direction
-Control males showed good performance with normal polarity but much worse performance when reversed.
-Females performed the best in the normal polarity condition but experienced the biggest drop in performance in the reversed polarity condition.
-ASC performed worse than controls on the normal polarity task but had the smallest drop in performance when given the reverse polarity task. |
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| 1 day old infants can discriminate between happy and sad faces -- looking time measured so inferences are made |
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| 5 months olds can match congruent facial and vocal expressions of emotion ; can discriminate emotional vocalisations |
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| women show more comforting behaviours even to strangers ; early sex differences in emotion recognition appear |
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ppts were shown series of photos with new images added
-had to choose which emotions were shown (anger, sad, happy, neutral, disgust, surprise)
-also ran a face identity task to if there is a problem processing any aspect of faces in autism or is it just specific to emotion
-ASC performed significantly worse than controls on negative emotions but not positve ones
-no group differences in face identity task
-Controls better than 80% on al emotions
-People with ASC show impairments in basic emotion recognition |
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18 month old infants watched a video of a man attempting to pull apart a dumbbell but failing to do so. They were able to pull apart the dumbbell even without seeing how it's done (infering that they have a sense of what the person's intention was)
-When they saw a machine try to pull apart the dumbbell and failed, they did not attempt to pull it apart |
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intentionality and utero testosterone levels
-Attributing intentions to shapes in videos
-Females used more mental and affective state terms to describe the interactions betweent the shapes
-Ppts with ASC use less of these mental and affective terms. Physical causation rather than human intentional causation. Movement explained in terms of gravity etc. |
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Faux pas task with 7, 9 and 11 year old females, males and ASC
-judging whether someone said something they shouldn't have said
-Girls 2 years ahead in understanding the faux pas
-Children with ASC impaired in understanding
-Seems to be a profile emerging in empathising (females > males > ASC) |
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Definition
| Baron-Cohen et al. (1999) |
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Term
| Females tend to score higher empathy scores than males and ASC on average |
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Definition
| Baron-Cohen et al. (2003) |
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| Postives of EQ (reliable between clinical and control groups; high test-retest reliability) |
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Definition
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| empathy can vary as a function of a person's current state ; unlikely that EQ is sensitive to such changes ; only assesses individual's beliefs about their own empathy |
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Definition
| Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004) |
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Term
reading the mental and emotional states of others from the eyes; 4 possible choices to describe mental state or the emotional expression they are displaying
-Although difficult task, females were better than males and people with ASC are impaired compared to controls |
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Definition
| Baron-Cohen et al. (1997) |
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Embedded Figures Test
-Females take the longest time, then males and ASC were the quickest |
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