Two enemy powers have been at war for a very long time. Each army has won several battles, but now the outcome could go either way. The forces are equally matched.What is cognitive learning definition however, the blue army is stronger than the yellow army in foot soldiers and artillery. But the yellow army is stronger than the blue army in air power.What is cognitive learning definition on the day of the final battle, which will decide the outcome of the war, there is a heavy fog over the mountains where the fighting is about to occur.What is cognitive learning definition low-lying clouds hang above the soldiers. By the end of the day the blue army have won.

Note that participants with autism and asperger syndrome did not perform worse than ?Normal?What is cognitive learning definition participants on these non-mentalist (physical) questions. It was the mental state tasks where participants with autism and asperger syndrome performed less well.What is cognitive learning definition the non-mentalist questions are control questions and demonstrate that the participants with autism and asperger syndrome can comprehend the questions.What is cognitive learning definition

Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition and is characterised by tics, involuntary and uncontrollable sounds and movements. Tourette syndrome is sometimes known as multiple tic disorder or tic spectrum disorder.What is cognitive learning definition it is also associated in the majority of cases with other behaviours, notably obsessional compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder.What is cognitive learning definition coprolalia (involuntary bad language), the most notorious but most misunderstood feature, affects only one person in ten.

The researchers note that the reason for using participants with tourette syndrome was because of the similarities between autism, asperger syndrome and tourette syndrome.What is cognitive learning definition for example, they are all developmental disorders experienced since childhood, these disorders disrupt normal schooling and normal peer relations, they all have a significant genetic basis and all have been a associated with abnormalities in the frontal region of the brain.What is cognitive learning definition

The target word to describe the mental state behind each pair of eyes was generated by four judges (two male and two female). A foil word was selected that was the semantic opposite of the target word.What is cognitive learning definition these were then tested on a panel of eight judges (four male and four female). On the target words there was unanimous agreement by all of the raters.What is cognitive learning definition the full set of mental state terms (and their foils) is shown below. Note that the mental state terms include both basic and complex mental states.What is cognitive learning definition

In order to check the validity of the eyes task as a theory of mind task, participants in the two clinical groups (autism or asperger syndrome and tourette syndrome) were also tested on happe's strange stories.What is cognitive learning definition in the case of the participants with autism and asperger syndrome, this was part of a separate study carried out earlier. It was argued that if the eyes task was indeed measuring theory of mind, then performance on the eyes task should correlate with performance on happe's strange stories.What is cognitive learning definition

This study was investigating whether high functioning adults with autism and asperger syndrome had deficiencies employing a theory of mind. Earlier research by simon baron-cohen and others had demonstrated that children with autism had difficulties with first and second order tests, such as the sally anne test.What is cognitive learning definition however further research has suggested that adults with autism and asperger syndrome can pass such tests.

Because the first and second order tests, as well as the strange stories task, were designed for children baron cohen et al.What is cognitive learning definition developed a new test called the ?Reading the mind in the eyes task (or eyes task for short). This advanced test aims to discover if high functioning adults with autism and asperger syndrome do have problems with mind reading which it is argued is related to the ability to employ a theory of mind.What is cognitive learning definition

The term autism was originally introduced by the psychiatrist kanner (1943) to describe a syndrome (a collection of symptoms) he observed in some of his child patients.What is cognitive learning definition kanner identified the key features of autism, which include impairments in social interaction and communication skills, coupled with unusual interest patterns and stereotyped behaviours.What is cognitive learning definition he suggested that autism was an inborn defect, as he observed that symptoms were often present from a very young age.

Asperger syndrome is a form of autism used to describe people who are usually at the higher functioning end of the autistic spectrum.What is cognitive learning definition people with asperger syndrome usually have fewer problems with language than those with autism, often speaking fluently, though their words can sometimes sound formal or stilted.What is cognitive learning definition people with asperger syndrome do not usually have the accompanying learning disabilities associated with autism; in fact, people with asperger syndrome are often of average or above average intelligence.What is cognitive learning definition

Second order theory of mind tests involve the participant reasoning about what one person thinks about another person?S thoughts. For example in the sally anne test this would involve asking the participant ?Where does anne think that sally will look for the marble??What is cognitive learning definition the correct answer is to say that anne believes that sally will look in her own basket. A number of studies have found that people with asperger syndrome can pass this second order test which can also be passed by 6 year old normal children.What is cognitive learning definition

However baron-cohen et al. Argue that because such test were designed for six year olds they can only demonstrate that the adults tested have theory of mind skills equivalent to those of a six year old.What is cognitive learning definition six year old children with normal intelligence can pass such tests and therefore baron cohen et al. Note that if an adult with autism of normal intelligence can pass a second order test all we can conclude is that they have an intact theory of mind skills at the level of a 6 year old.What is cognitive learning definition

Happe (1994) developed a more advanced theory of mind test called the strange stories task designed for the level of a normal 8-9 year old. This task involved story comprehension, where the key question in the task either concerned a character's mental states (the experimental condition) or physical events (the control condition).What is cognitive learning definition it was found that both adults with autism or asperger syndrome had more difficulty with the mental state task than ?Normal? Control participants.What is cognitive learning definition

Furthermore the experiment was standardised in the way that every participant was tested in the same way. The use of standardised procedures in the way the photographs were presented ensured that the researchers could claim with some certainty that the independent variable which is the characteristics of autism was causing the dependent variable that is performance on the eye task.What is cognitive learning definition

It is possible to question the ecological validity of the experiment. Some of the participants were tested at a lab in a university and this strange situation may have had an effect on performance.What is cognitive learning definition probably more importantly the eye task test can be questioned as it is an unusual task which is much simpler than the demands of real live social situations.What is cognitive learning definition for example in the real world stimuli are not static. The researchers do recognise this lack of ecological validity and provide anecdotal evidence that many of the participants with autism or asperger syndrome find watching films difficult because they find it hard to understand the intentions or motives of the characters in the films.What is cognitive learning definition

The validity of the eyes task can be questioned. That is, is the eye task may not be actually measuring theory of mind. However, the researchers defend the validity in a number of ways.What is cognitive learning definition first, the target words are actual mental state terms. Secondly, these are not just emotion terms, but include terms describing cognitive mental states.What is cognitive learning definition this is therefore more than just an emotion perception test. Thirdly, the pattern of results from the eyes task mirrored the pattern of performance on the happ?What is cognitive learning definition strange stories task - an existing advanced theory of mind task. Finally, the deficit on the eyes task was not mirrored on the two control tasks, suggesting that the poor performance by participants with autism or asperger syndrome was not due to the stimuli being eyes, or to a deficit in extracting social information from minimal cues, or to a subtle perceptual deficit, or to basic emotion recognition.What is cognitive learning definition the researchers also noted that some of the participants with autism or asperger syndrome had university degrees, yet scored poorly on the eyes task suggesting s this aspect of social cognition is independent of general intelligence.What is cognitive learning definition

According to the researchers the finding of an impairment on the eyes task mirrors other difficulties that have been found in autism in relation to understanding the mentalistic significance of the eyes.What is cognitive learning definition for example, toddlers with autism have joint attention deficits, thought to reflect a failure to interpret gaze direction as a cue to the mental state of attention.What is cognitive learning definition young children with autism have also been found to have difficulty in interpreting direction of gaze in terms of a person?S goals or desires and in terms of their intention to refer.What is cognitive learning definition they are also relatively blind to the importance of gaze direction as a cue to when someone is thinking.

Although there are a number of criticisms of baron-cohen?S explanations perhaps one of the strongest criticisms has come from people with autism.What is cognitive learning definition many blogs written by people with autism note that we should recognise that studies such as this are providing us with a non-autistic person?S explanation of autism.What is cognitive learning definition the world of an autistic person may be very different from the world of a non autistic person and thus many autistic people do not accept baron-cohen et al.What is cognitive learning definition explanations.