Theory of Mind: picture sequencing task

This task is a low-verbal content task, taken from Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith (1986). It aims to test participants’ understanding of physical events, and two types of social events:

one requiring understanding of other people’s mental states, and the other requiring no understanding of other’s mental states.

5.3.1 Material

The independent variables are summarised in the figure below:

Figure 13. Schematic representation of experimental conditions

The first independent variable was the Type of event taking place. Events represented on the picture sequences could either be Mechanical, Behavioural or Intentional. A second independent variable applied only to the Mechanical conditions. We named this variable Entity, where either a Person or an Object can be the main “actors” of the story. The last independent variable applied only to the behavioural conditions. We named this variable Social interaction, where the story could either represent a scene with social interaction (Yes), or no social interaction (No).

The dependent variable was the child’s sequence of response for the three pictures, which could either be correct (2 points), partially correct when the last picture was well positioned (1 point), or incorrect (0 points).

Fifteen stories were presented , with five types of stories overall, three stories per condition:

 Mechanical 1 (Entity: Object): an object was depicted interacting causally with another object.

 Mechanical 2 (Entity: Person): a person was depicted interacting causally with an object.

 Behavioural 1 (Social interaction: No): one person was depicted in an everyday scene which did not require attribution of mental states to understand.

 Behavioural 2 (Social interaction: Yes): two people were depicted interacting in an everyday scene which did not require attribution of mental states to understand.

 Intentional: two people were depicted interacting in a scene where one held a false-belief.

Type of event

Mechanical Entity

Object

Person

Behavioural Social

interaction

No

Yes Intentional

Figure 14. Example of a “Behavioural 1” picture sequence as presented to the child.

5.3.2 Procedure

The experimenter placed the first picture on the first square of the cardboard strip. The other three pictures were placed above the cardboard strip in the same incorrect semi-random order as described in Baron-Cohen et al. (1986).

The child’s task was to find the correct order of the three remaining illustrations. The experimenter then asked the children to tell them the story and recorded it for further spontaneous speech analysis (spontaneous speech data was not analysed in this thesis).

The items were administered in the following order: Mechanical 1, Mechanical 2, Behavioural 2, Intentional, and Behavioural 1.

5.3.3 Scoring and data analysis

The experimenter wrote the child’s sequence of images immediately after they had placed all the pictures on the cardboard strip. One point was attributed when the child had placed the last picture correctly but the second and third were incorrect. Two points were attributed when the whole sequence was correct. Total number of points and mean scores (ranging from 0 to 2) were calculated for each of the five conditions, and for each of the three types of story (Intention, Mechanic and Behaviour).

Mean performances for each of the five experimental conditions were compared through Student t-tests, for all participants and for the subgroup of participants whose AQ and CARS scores fall above the cut-off for autism or referral.

5.3.4 Hypotheses

Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith (1986) hypothesised that children with autism would display the following pattern of results:

M Object > M Person > B No social interaction > B Social interaction > Intention Results found by Baron-Cohen et al. only partially supported this hypothesis, as their participants with autism obtained similar results in both conditions of the Behaviour stories and in both conditions of the Mechanic stories. Performance was high in the Mechanic stories (1.91), good in the Behaviour stories (1.48), but poor in the intentional stories (0.59).

We expect to replicate the results found by Baron-Cohen et al..

5.3.5 Results

Table 11

Mean performance (and standard deviations) for all participants on each of the five experimental conditions (range 0-2).

Student t-tests show that Entity has no effect in the two Mechanic conditions (t (20) = -.98, p= .34). We can therefore collapse these for further analyses.

Student t-tests show that Social interaction has an effect on performance in the Behaviour conditions, with significantly better results in the No social interaction condition (1.62) than in the Social interaction condition (1.16) (t (20)= 4.22, p< .001).

Performance on the collapsed Mechanic condition (1.83) is significantly higher than performance on the Behaviour condition with No social interaction (1.62) (t(20)=2.49, p=.02). Performance on the collapsed Mechanic condition (1.83) is also significantly higher than performance on the Behaviour condition with Social interaction (1.16), with t(20)=4.86, p<.001).

Performance is significantly lower in the Intention condition (1.02) than in the Behaviour condition with No social interaction (1.62) (t(20)=4.33, p<.001). However, performance in the Intention condition (1.02) is not significantly different from the Behaviour condition with Social interaction (1.16) (t(20)=.873, p=.39).

Following Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith (1986), we also collapsed both Behaviour conditions and compared this to the intention condition. We found that children’s performance was significantly better in the behaviour condition (1.34) than in the intention condition (1.01) (t(20)=2.63, p=.02).

Furthermore, we analysed a subset of results from those participants whose scores on the AQ and the CARS were below cut-offs (“autism” subgroup).

Table 12

Mean performance (and standard deviations) for the 13 participants in the “autism” subgroup, for each of the five experimental conditions (range 0-2).

Mechanic 1

As with previous analyses including all participants, a significant effect of Social interaction was found between the two Behaviour conditions (t (13) =3.09, p= .009). Student t-tests show that Entity has no effect in the two Mechanic conditions (t (13) = -1.64 , p= .13). The Mechanic conditions were therefore collapsed for further analyses.

Performance on the collapsed Mechanic condition (1.77) was significantly higher than on the Behaviour condition with No social interaction (1.51) (t (13) =3.73, p= .003).

Contrary to results obtained with all participants, performance on the Behaviour with Social interaction condition (1.15) was significantly higher than performance on the Intention condition (0.87) (t (13) =3.30, p= .006)

5.3.6 Discussion

We expected participants’ results to follow the pattern found by Baron-Cohen et al (1986), as summarised below (M= Mechanical; B= Behavioural):

M Object = M Person > B No social interaction = B Social interaction > Intention Instead, our participants displayed the following pattern of results:

M Object = M Person > B No social interaction > B Social interaction = Intention The children in Baron-Cohen et al. (1986) obtained lower results (0.59) than the children in our study (1.02) for the Intention condition. This could be because our sample includes all children on the autism spectrum, whereas children in Baron-Cohen et al.’s study corresponded to the diagnostic criteria for autism of the time. Children with Asperger’s syndrome could be performing very well because their verbal reasoning skills may be allowing for a more advanced interpreting of the sequences. This would need to be examined with a larger sample and diagnostic subgroups.

The pattern of results for only those participants whose AQ and CARS are above the cut-offs for referral is shown below:

M Object = M Person > B No social interaction > B Social interaction > Intention These results fit Baron-Cohen et al.’s initial hypothesis better, as the only difference between our pattern of results and the pattern of results expected by Baron-Cohen et al. was the lack of effect of the Entity variable in the Mechanic condition.