BARON-COHEN, JOLIFFE, MORTIMORE AND ROBERTSON (1997): ANOTHER
ADVANCED TEST OF THEORY OF MIND: EVIDENCE FROM VERY HIGH
FUNCTIONING ADULTS WITH AUTISM OR ASPERGER SYNDROME.
INTRODUCTION
This study investigates the core problem experienced by people with autism, a disorder
involving social and communication difficulties. Theory of mind develops in most humans (as
part of their general cognitive development) at about the age of 4. Theory of mind is the
ability to understand and predict what other people think and feel. It is therefore the
ability to infer in other people a range of mental states such as beliefs, desires,
intentions, imaginations and emotions.
This study attempts to measure the short fall of advanced theory of mind skills in adults
with autism/Asperger syndrome, through the use of a well-known test, the ‘Eyes Task’
Baron-Cohen et al claim that the results of this study show the core deficit in autism is
failure to develop a TOM rather than low intellectual ability. It certainly appears that
autistics, even if they have some basic understanding of other people’s thoughts, feelings
etc, it tends not to be at the level one would expect from observed abilities in other areas
e.g. intellectual ability. This suggestion obviously has implications for understanding and
helping people with autism. Adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with
social relationships. Research using TOM tasks has found children diagnosed with autism
are not able to reason what another person is thinking (see results of the study using the
Sally-Anne Test). However the Sally-Anne Test is obviously not appropriate for adults, so
another test had to be devised – the Eyes Task.
ABSTRACT
The ‘Eyes Task’ was used to see if high functioning adults with autism/AS have a theory of
mind.
Three groups of participants were tested:
 Group 1 – participants with autism/As, normal intelligence, 13 males and 3 females.
 Group 2 – 50 normal adults, age matched.
 Group 3 – participants with Tourette syndrome (TS), age matched, 8 males and 2
females.
Groups 2 and 3 served as controls.
Participants were given the following tasks (tasks C & D were control tasks given to Group
1; Group 2 only did task A):
 Task A – Eyes Task, 25 forced choice questions about emotion expressed in a
person’s eyes. Tested basic and more complex emotions.
 Task B – Strange Stories Task used to validate the results from Eyes Task.
 Task C – Gender Recognition of eyes, a control task involving face perception but not
mindreading.
 Task D – Basic Emotion Recognition Task, a control task, participants had to identify
basic emotions in whole faces to demonstrate they could recognise emotional states
in a simple test.
Results showed:
Eyes task – The mean score for individuals with autism/AS was 16.3 (out of 25) whereas it
was 20.3 and 20.4 respectively for Groups 2 and 3. Within the normal group males did less
well than females.
Strange Stories task – Group 1 had more difficulty with this task, supporting the validity
of the Eyes task as a test for autism.
Control tasks – there was no difference between Groups 1 and 3.
These results provide evidence of mindreading deficits even in high functioning individuals
with autism/AS.
THE STUDY
THE AIM: was to find out why adults with autism have problems with social relationships
and to develop an advanced test for theory of mind in adults with autism.
In order to show an impaired theory of mind was a specific deficit associated with the
autistic spectrum of disorders, this group was compared with a clinical control group of
adults with Tourette syndrome, chosen because of the number of similarities these
participants had with the participants with autism and Asperger syndrome:
 They all had intelligence in the normal range.
 They had all suffered from a developmental disorder since childhood.
 These disorders all cause disruptions to normal schooling and peer relations.
 These disorders are all believed to affect the same area of the brain.
 They are all suggested to be genetic in origin.
 These disorders all affect males more than females.
A third group of participants was made up of normal adults. Each group was tested on
their theory of mind skills using the ‘Eyes Task’ and their performance compared.
A secondary aim of this study was to investigate whether females would be better than
males on this test of theory of mind.
THE HYPOTHESIS: Adults with Asperger syndrome/autism can’t interpret states of
mind from ‘reading eyes’.
The independent variable (IV) was the three different groups of participants
(autistics/AS; Tourettes; normal).
The dependent variable (DV) was performance on an advanced test of theory of mind (eyes
task).
THE METHOD: This was a natural/quasi experiment having a matched participant design.
Since participants were allocated to the three conditions depending on whether they were
autistic/AS, normal, or had Tourette syndrome, the IV occurred naturally, was not
manipulated and so the method used was a quasi-experiment.
THE PARTICIPANTS: Three groups of participants were tested:
1. 16 participants (13 males, 3 females) with high functioning autism (4) or Asperger
syndrome (12). All were of normal intelligence (mean IQ = 105.31), therefore unconfounded
by mental handicap. They were recruited from a variety of sources, as well as an advert in
the national Autistic Society magazine, ‘Communication’.
2. 50 normal age-matched adults, 25 males, 25 females, all drawn from the general
population of Cambridge. None had any history of any psychiatric condition (as established
by self-report). They were selected randomly from the subject panel held in the university
department. They were all assumed to have intelligence in the normal range i.e. an IQ
above 85.
3. 10 adult patients (8 males, 2 females, mirroring the sex ratio of Group 1)) with Tourette
syndrome, also age-matched with Group 1. They were all attending a referral centre in
London (mean IQ = 103.5). The reason for using people with TS was because of the
similarities between autism, AS and TS. e.g. they are all developmental disorders,
experienced since childhood, which disrupt normal schooling and normal peer relations.
They all have a significant genetic basis (i.e. are likely to be inherited) and all have been
associated with abnormalities in the frontal region of the brain.
All participants in Group 1 and 3 were able to pass the first and second-order false belief
(TOM) tasks. This meant that any failure on the Eyes task could be attributed to problems
with mindreading problems beyond that of a six year old.
It was expected that only participants in Group 1 would be significantly impaired on the
Eyes Task.
THE LOCATION AND THE TASKS: The Eyes Task, the Strange Stories and two control
tasks were presented in random order to all participants; this to avoid order effects. The
participants were tested individually in a quiet room in their own home, in the researchers’
clinic or in the laboratory at Cambridge University.
THE PROCEDURE:
1. The Eyes Task: the test comprises photographs of the eye region of 25 different
faces (male and female).the photos were taken from magazines and were standardised:
same size (15 x 10 cm), all black and white and all of the same region (from midway along
the nose to just above the eyebrow).
Each picture was shown for 3 seconds and participants were given a forced choice question
– they had to select between two mental states terms printed under each picture. These
mental state terms were either ‘basic’ mental states (such as sad or afraid) or more
‘complex’ (such as reflective, arrogant, scheming etc). The two terms for each photo were
one mental state and its ‘foil’ i.e. a term with the opposite meaning – e.g. concerned and
unconcerned, or friendly and hostile. The experimenter asks the participant, ‘Which word
best describes what this person is thinking or feeling?’ The maximum score = 25.
The full list was:
Photo Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Target Term
Concerned
Noticing you
Attraction
Relaxed
Serious message
Interested
Friendly
Sad reflection
Sad though
Certain
Far away focus
Reflective
Reflective
Cautious about
something over there
Noticing someone else
Calm
Dominant
Fantasising
Observing
Desire for you
21
22
23
24
25
Ignoring you
Nervous about you
Flirtatious
Sympathetic
Decisive
Foil
Unconcerned
Ignoring you
Repulsion
Worried
Playful message
Disinterested
Hostile
Happy reflection
Happy thought
Uncertain
Near focus
Unreflective
Unreflective
Relaxed about
something over there
Noticing you
Anxious
Submissive
Noticing
Daydreaming
Desire for someone
else
Noticing you
Interested in you
Disinterested
Unsympathetic
Indecisive
For details of the Eyes Test see the following website:
http://www.psychblog.co.uk/category/as-psychology/cognitive-psychology
To try an eyes test go to the following website:
http://glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/Faces/EyesTest.aspx
2. Strange Stories TasK: participants in groups 1 and 3 were also tested on Happé’s
Strange Stories Task in order to demonstrate the validity of the Eyes Task as a test of
TOM. If it is a valid test then performance on the Eyes Task should correlate with
performance on the strange stories task (this is an example of concurrent validity).
Find examples of Happé Strange Stories at the following website:
http://www.psychblog.co.uk/a-selection-of-strange-stories-theory-of-mindautism693.html
3. Control Tasks: In order to check whether difficulties with the Eyes Task might be due
to other factors participants in Group 1 were given two control tasks:
* Gender recognition of Eyes Task: identifying the gender of the eyes used for the Eyes
Task. Such a judgement does not involve mindreading but does involve face perception,
perceptual discrimination and/or social perception. Therefore this controls for any
difficulties in those areas. The maximum score on this test was also 25.
* Basic Emotion Recognition Task (Emotion Task): participants were asked to judge photos
of whole faces which displayed the six basic emotions identified by Ekman (1992) (happy,
sad, angry, afraid, disgust and surprise). This was done to check if difficulties on the Eyes
Task were due to difficulties with basic emotional recognition. This task is not the same as
the Eyes Task for two reasons – it involves whole faces and it tests only the basic six
emotions rather than a fuller range of mental states. Such differences mean that it is
easier to recognise emotional states on this basic task than on the Eyes Task.
THE RESULTS
Results from the Eyes Task showed participants with Tourette syndrome did not differ
from normal participants on this task, but both control groups performed significantly
better than the group with autism or AS.
On the Happé’s ‘strange stories’ no participants with Tourette syndrome made any errors
but the participants with autism or AS made errors and were significantly impaired on this
task compared to controls.
On the gender and emotion-control tasks, there were no real differences between the
groups.
EYE TASK
AUTISTIC/AS
NORMAL
TOURETTE
MEAN
16.3
20.3
20.4
RANGE
10
9
9
GENDER
24.1
23.3
23.7
RECOGNITION
TASK
Mean performance on the Eyes Task and gender recognition task
Do females have a more advanced theory of mind?
In the normal group, as predicted, female participants performed significantly better than
males on the Eyes Task:
GENDER
EYES TASK
EYES TASK
GENDER
(MEAN)
(RANGE)
CONTROL
MALES (25)
18.8
6
24.0
FEMALES (25)
21.8
5
23.8
Mean performance by males and females in the normal group
The results therefore show:
 Adults with autism/AS were impaired on a TOM despite having normal intelligence.
 Within the normal population females do better on this test of TOM than males.
The autism/AS impairment is:
 Not due to low intelligence because performance on the Eyes Task was not
correlated with IQ.
 Not the result of just any developmental neuropsychiatric disability since
participants with TS were unimpaired on the test (Neuropsychiatric refers to
mental disorder which has a neurological or ‘brain’ component).
 Not due to having difficulty interpreting context. Some psychologists have
suggested that individuals with autism have difficulty dealing with some tasks
because they cannot separate themselves from reality and answer questions out of
context. In the case of the Eyes Task there was no context – it consisted of items
that were relatively ‘pure’ TOM.
Additionally the results showed:
 No support for a link between TOM and frontal brain processes. Previous research
had suggested that the frontal part of the brain might be involved in TOM but the
fact that TS participants had no greater difficulty than normal participants on the
TOM task suggests otherwise.
CONCLUSION
Baron-Cohen confirmed that adults with autism/AS, despite being of normal or above
average IQ, performed poorly on the Eyes Task, an advanced test of theory of mind. They
therefore concluded from this that the core deficit involved in autism is the lack of an
advanced theory of mind. They justify this conclusion because:
 Poor performance by this group could not have been due to low intelligence because
participants were in the normal or above normal range of IQ – some of the
participants even had university degrees. This strongly suggests that social
cognition is independent of general intelligence.
 Poor performance could not have been due to developmental neuropsychiatric
disability because participants with TS were unimpaired on this task.
The researchers claim that the Eyes task was a valid measure of theory of mind because:
 The target words are mental state terms.
 The target words are not just emotional states but include terms describing
cognitive mental states, suggesting that this task is not just an emotion perception
task.
 The pattern of results from the Eyes task mirrored the performance on Happé’s
‘strange stories’, another test of advanced theory of mind.
 The poor performance on the Eyes task was not mirrored on the two control tasks,
suggesting that the poor performance by participants with autism/AS was not due
to the stimuli being eyes, or to basic emotion recognition.
From the second finding that females performed significantly better on the Eyes Task
than males, the researchers concluded that within the normal population, females have
more advanced theory of mind skills than males. Baron-Cohen suggests this may reflect
sex differences in the rate of development of theory of mind in childhood and therefore
be due to genetic factors, or this advantage may be due to the ways girls are socialised
differently to boys, encouraging them to pay more attention to what people are thinking.
Either way previous research has not found a gender difference on mindreading tests but
this may be because previous tests showed a ceiling effect. Therefore the Eyes Task
offers a new method of investigating this difference.
DISCUSSION
When evaluating this study one needs to consider the following key issues:
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Can this study be seen from another psychological approach or perspective?
Was it ecologically valid?
Were any ethical issues raised?
Are there any methodological limitations?
What does the study tell us about the nature/nurture debate?
What type of data was gathered? Are there any strengths/weaknesses of this type
of data?
How reliable are the findings?
How valid are the findings?
Can the study be considered reductionist?
Can the findings of this study be of any use?
1. Identify two features of the sample used in this study.
[2]
2. How were participants matched in this study?
[2]
3. (a) Identify the two control groups used in this study.
[2]
(b) Explain why one of these control groups was used.
[2]
4. Explain what is meant by the term ‘theory of mind’.
[2]
5. (a) Describe one of the control tasks used in this study.
[2]
(b) Outline the findings from this study.
[2]
6. Describe the Eyes Task as used in this study.
[4]
7.
EYE TASK
MEAN
RANGE
GENDER
RECOGNITION
TASK
AUTISTIC/AS
16.3
10
24.1
NORMAL
20.3
9
23.3
TOURETTE
20.4
9
23.7
Mean performance on the Eyes Task and gender recognition task
(a) Use the above table to draw a graph of the three groups of participants’ mean
performance on the Eyes task and gender recognition task.
[2]
(b) Draw one conclusion from your graph.
8.
GENDER
EYES TASK
EYES TASK
GENDER
(MEAN)
(RANGE)
CONTROL
MALES (25)
18.8
6
24.0
FEMALES (25)
21.8
5
23.8
Mean performance by males and females in the normal group
Draw one conclusion from the above table which gives the mean performance by
[2]
normal males and females on the Eyes Task.
9. (a) Explain what is meant by the term ‘ecological validity’.
(b) Explain in what way this study may be described as lacking in ecological
validity.
10. Suggest one practical application of this study.
[2]
[2]
[2]
[2]
Total [30]