Emotions

1. Emotions • What emotions do you think these cartoons are showing? • 3. Now draw faces for the following emotions: • amazed • confused • fearful 2. What are the key features of the face that we use to show emotion?

2. Surprised or indifferent? Angry or pleased? Calm or fearful?

3. Cheerful or sad? Happy or sad? Disgusted or delighted?

4. Surprised Angry Fearful Sad Happy Disgusted

5. Simon Baron Cohen &Therese Joliffe (1997) A new test for Theory of Mind

6. Baron Cohen et al (1997)The eye task Which word best describes what this person is thinking or feeling CONCERNED or UNCONCERNED

7. Autism • An experimental approach, investigating the nature of autism • Autism (from Greek meaning “self”) • Identified by Leo Kanner (1943) • Children very much in their own little world, show no regard for the existence of others • “treat people and objects alike”

8. Characteristics of Autism • Impaired ability to communicate verbally • Impaired ability to communicate non-verbally (no pointing) • Inability to relate socially to others • Inability to behave flexibly • Obsession with a restricted repertoire of activities (“insistence on sameness”) • “Islets of ability” (eg. art/music) • IQ below 70 (80%) – but not consistent (eg. above average in visual/spatial tests, low in language tests)

9. Asperger’s Syndrome • Identified by Hans Asperger (1944) in young Austrian boys • Less severe than Autism • Problems with social interactions, behaviour, emotions, etc • Fewer problems with language and cognitions • Grouped with the AUTISTIC SPECTRUM DISORDERS

10. Explanations/Theories for Autism/Asperger’s • Kanner (1943) & Bettelheim (1967): poor parenting (psychoanalytic) • Nikolas Tinbergen (1983): lack of instinct to bond/form attachment with other members of family • Lovaas (1979) suggested that the symptoms are dealt with, without going into the causes (behaviourism) • Physiological/genetic – some evidence of brain differences, seems heritable, identical twins concordant for autism, 1/3 also suffer epilepsy

11. Second Order Representations • Alan Leslie (1984) suggests a cognitive mechanism • Second order representations – developed in 2nd year of life • “ability to impute mental states to others” • Responsible for pretend play

12. Simon Baron-Cohen • Professor at Cambridge University • Suggests physiological explanations (hereditary) •  Autism is extreme form of the “male brain” • (It’s 3 times more common in boys) • Cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen • “Ni-i-ice!”

13. Baron-Cohen et al's explanation • Autistic people do not have a “Theory of Mind” • They do not understand that people have their own thoughts about the world •  serious implications for social interaction • They do not understand people can hold false beliefs • They do not engage in pretend play

14. An old test for Theory of Mind • The Sally-Anne test was used (Wimmer & Perner, 1983) •  tests a child's ability to understand what a person believes • easily solved by “normal” 5-year-olds

15. Sally has a basket. Anne has a box. The “Sally – Anne Test” 1 • Children tested individually - seated at desk opposite researcher • Two dolls - Sally & Anne • Sally has basket, Anne has box

16. Sally has a marble. She puts the marble into her basket. The “Sally – Anne Test” 2 • Naming Question: children asked to confirm they know the names of the two dolls (CONTROL) • Sally puts marble in basket

17. The “Sally – Anne Test” 3 • Sally goes for a walk (doll disappears from view) • Anne plays a trick - takes marble from Sally's basket and puts it in her (Anne's) box

18. The “Sally – Anne Test” 4 • Sally returns • CRITICAL QUESTION (the “Belief Question”): “Where will Sally look for her marble?”

19. The “Sally – Anne Test” - Responses • "Where will Sally look for her marble?" • Correct response: "in Sally's basket" • (that is where Sally left it - she is unaware of Anne's trickery) • Incorrect response: "in Anne's box" • (Sally does not know this - child is saying where they believe the marble is) •  demonstrates inability to understand Sally has a false belief

20. Why a new test? • Sally-Anne test identifies autism in CHILDREN • Adults with Autism can pass it • (they apply logic and experience, rather than trying to “get into Sally’s head”) • CEILING EFFECT  test stops being useful when participants reach a certain level of ability • Need a new test for adults

21. The “Strange Stories” test • Francesca Happé (1994) created this test for older children • 24 “vignettes” (very short stories, just a paragraph each) • 2 questions – one about physical events (what happened?); one about mental events (what did people think, mean or feel?) • People with Autism/Asperger’s have difficulty with the mental events question

22. Example from the “Strange Stories” test • Sarah and Tom are going on a picnic. It is Tom's idea, he says it is going to be a lovely sunny day for a picnic. But just as they are unpacking the food, it starts to rain, and soon they are both soaked to the skin. Sarah is cross. She says, "Oh yes, a lovely day for a picnic alright!" • PHYSICAL EVENTS: Is it true, what Sarah says? • MENTAL EVENTS: Why does she say this?

23. The Study • Research Question: WHY do adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social relationships? • The hypothesis: • That adults with Autism/Asperger’s Syndrome can’t interpret states of mind from ‘reading eyes’

24. Details of the Study • Method: Natural experiment (or “quasi-experiment”) • 3 groups of participants • IV = Normal, Autistic, Tourette’s syndrome • DV = performance on eye task (maximum score = 25)

25. Participants • There were three groups of participants. • All had normal (>85) intelligence on Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test. • 16 Adults with High functioning autism/Asperger’s Syndrome • 13 males: 3 females • recruited by advert and clinics • 10 adults with Tourette’s Syndrome • age matched • 8 males: 2 females • 50 normal adults (from Cambridge) • 25 males: 25 females • assumed normal intelligence • Groups 1 and 2 and both passed 1st order ToM Tests

26. Why did Baron-Cohen use participants with Tourette’s Syndrome? • Tourettes participants were used as Tourette’s Syndrome and autism are similar and using both would control some of the extraneous variables. • Both Tourette’s Syndrome and autism participants: • had normal intelligence • suffered with disorder from childhood • had disorders that disrupted schooling and peer relations • had disorders supposed to originate in frontal lobe abnormalities. • Participants in both clinical groups had passed Theory of Mind tests based on 6-year-old Theory of mind skills.

27. Method and design • The Eyes task, Strange Stories task and two control tasks were presented in random order to all subjects. • Subjects were tested in a quiet room either at home, in clinic or in a laboratory. • Independent design.

28. Independent and dependent variables • Independent variables: • autism • Tourette’s Syndrome • normal • gender in normal group • Dependent variables: • correct identification of emotion • correct identification of gender

29. Hypotheses • Patients with Tourette’s Syndrome would be unimpaired on this advanced theory of mind test, but the subjects with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome would show a significant impairment on this test. • Subjects who had difficulties when completing the Eyes task or Strange Stories task should also have difficulties when completing the other task. • Normal females may be superior to normal males in emotion perception.

30. Eyes task • Words were generated by the panel and tested. • Each word was presented with a ‘foil’ or opposite. e.g. serious vs playful • The method of using the eyes only was chosen as no context/planning skills are required.

31. More on the Eye Task Procedure • Forced choice ‘eye task’ questions • examples • TARGET (correct) FOIL (opposite) • attraction worried • friendly hostile • calm anxious • The TARGET is the correct answer presented randomised both left and right.

32. More on how the eye task was selected • How was the ‘eye task’ created • Magazine photos selected • 4 judges generated the target words • TARGET FOIL • calm anxious • The TARGET is the correct answer. The FOIL is the opposite.

33. Strange Stories task • This had already been linked to theory of mind (Joliffe 1997). • It was carried out to validate Eyes task. • It found that Tourette’s Syndrome group made no errors, autism/Asperger’s Syndrome group made a significant number of errors. • This gives the Eyes task concurrent validity.

34. Control tasks • Basic emotion recognition task • looking at whole faces and judging emotions • Gender recognition task • looking at two sets of eyes and identifying gender • On the two control tasks, there were no differences between the groups.

37. Controls 1 • CONTROL in generating targets & foils • (increases eye task VALIDITY) • eye photos shown to panel of 8 adults who did not know there was a ‘right or wrong’ answer there was 100% agreement with TARGET

38. The Procedure • The ‘eyes task’ procedure: • 25 photos of eyes • each 15 x 10cm black and white • each photo shown for 3 seconds • forced choice question • tested individually in quiet room

39. Controls 2 • CONTROL tasks • (1) Gender Identification: all participants asked to identify the GENDER of each of the 25 eye photos • (2) Basic emotion task: all participants asked to identify the emotion in full face photos, happy, sad, angry, afraid, surprise, disgust (Paul Ekman’s 6 basic categories of emotion) • CORRELATION • Participants also attempted Happé’s Strange Stories task – check for CONCURRENT VALIDITY

40. Results • Findings: • Score are out of 25; mean scores below:

41. Conclusions • Were these differences significant (above the level of chance) ? • At a significance level of p =< 0.0001 Normal and Tourette’s better than Autistic • At a significance level of p =< 0.0001 Normal females better than males

42. Conclusions • Evidence for subtle ‘mindreading’ deficits in intelligent adults on the Autistic spectrum • The eye task is a ‘pure theory of mind test’ because there is NO context • (but that does mean it lacks ecological validity)