Friday, 30 September 2011
How we study psychology
Hey hey hey, now there are a fair few ways in which we study psychology but I'm going to talk about experiments. Lab experiments are experiments where the researcher controls all variables. This ensures only the independant variable is what is being measured. all extraneous or confounding variables are removed from the equation. An example illustrating laboratory experiment conditions is the experiment conducted by Simon Baron- Cohen. His experimet looked into people with higher functioning autism to test for 'Theory of Mind' (ToM). This is the ability to look at something from another persons point of view or for lack of a better word empathise. Using what he found was a purely ToM task, the eyes task, Baron Cohen compared scores between the autistic group, a group of people with tourettes syndrome and a group who, and i know this isnt fair to say but, could be considered normal... It was found that the autistic group struggled the most when attempting to decipher the emotion behind each set of eyes. the scores came somewhere along the lines of 20.4 for the 'normal' group and roughly 16 for the autistic group. The tourettes group too scored into the 20s. their role in this experiment was to act as a control to see if ToM was absent in other people with disorders but it was not the case. Here we can see that the use of controls and non bias tests makes the lab experiment a useful way to gather information.
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Hey hey hey. This study should be recognised as a significant one in autism research, as it clearly shows that people with autism are low emphathisers, and high systemisers. Also, another advantage of this being a laboratory experiment is that it shows a clear cause and effect relationship. However, laboratory experiments may reduce the validity of the task. The results may be more natural if this was a natural experiment. For example if a child with autism was approached by someone upset or happy, they may react different in real life as there may be more social cues, such as hand gestures and tone of voice.
ReplyDeleteHiya katie. I completely agree with you when you emphasise the significance of this study AND how the nature of the experiment may reduce its validity. There is no way anyone, people with autism or people without, would look solely at a persons eyes when judging emotion. There are so many other factors that influence someones ability to empathise and understand like you say. although its flawed I guess the eyes task was used as a control as it was considered a 'pure' ToM task. By using the task the significance of the study has been shown as people with higher functioning autism do lack theory of Mind. And considering everyone had to go through the same task consistency should also be apparent.
ReplyDeleteHey hey hey :) That was a really interesting entry, Jake! I agree with Katie when it comes to less validity at laboratory experiments. I think it's really interesting that there was a Tourettes group that was in control, even if it was not the point of the experiment.
ReplyDeleteAs Katie stated, the reactions of autistic people may differ in real life, so how valid it is to say that someone autistic fails to judge emotion under the specific circumstances?