Further reading on The theory of Mind – Autism and Asperger Syndrome
Theory of mind is the ability to understand mental state such as beliefs, feeling, desire, hope and intentions. This ability develops rapidly in young children but has slow rates in autism. The sally –Anne test is commonly used to test theory of mind. Neuroimaging studies has located specific region that are activated during theory of mind tasks such as the anterior paracingulate cortex, the superior temporal sulci and the temporal poles bilaterally. However those that have Asperger syndrome show significantly lower activation in this brain region which has been identified as importation for engaging in mentalising task in normal people.
People with autism suffer from the lack of central coherence which is the cognitive ability to combine together a group of separate features in to a single coherence, object or concept. There is evidence that suggest that test for factual knowledge and focuses attention to detail can lead to high performances whereas test tapping in common sense comprehensions can show low performances. This therefore shows differences in information processing style rather than a deficit. For example when retelling a story normal individual finds it easier to recall gist of the story rather than the specific detail. Whereas those with autism do the opposite therefore suggesting that they have a weak coherence
The Gestalt psychology argues that it is not the inability to combine information together but rather that they have an enhanced discrimination of individual element. Suggesting that the early stage of sensory processing are intact in autism, but the top-down modulation of these early processing stages which extract global feature of stimulus is not functioning properly.
In addition many have suggested that it is an innate ability however there has been controversial argument that it is a learnt behaviour and perhaps autistic children find it difficult to learn.
Example of the sally- Anne test
A sally- Ann test is used to judge whether a person has a theory of mind. A child is presented with two doll, sally and Ann each doll has their own box. Sally put a marble in her own box and pop out the room them Ann pay a tick on sally and takes the marble and hid it under her box, sally come back in the room, the researcher askes the child were would sally look for her marble .
A child that has a theory of mind, know that Anne played a tick on her and would look in her own (Sally) box however a child that lack the theory of mind would see the situation through her own point of view and would say that Sally should look under Anne box, children between 6-7 are able to perform well on this task even some children as little as 3.
There is also evidence to suggest that some intelligent autistic can do the test through logical deduction without having the ability of theory of mind whereas those with low intelligence would perform poor on this test.
Frontal lobes
Describe the main components of the frontal lobes
The Cerebrum: The cerebrum or cortex is the largest part of the human brain, associated with higher brain function such as thought and action. The cerebral cortex is divided into four sections, called "lobes": the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. Here is a visual representation of the cortex:
- Frontal Lobe- associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving
- Parietal Lobe- associated with movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli
- Occipital Lobe- associated with visual processing
- Temporal Lobe- associated with perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech
The cerebrum into two halves, known as the left and right hemispheres. The two hemispheres look mostly symmetrical yet it has been shown that each side functions slightly different than the other. Sometimes the right hemisphere is associated with creativity and the left hemispheres is associated with logic abilities. The corpus callosum is a bundle of axons which connects these two hemispheres.
Evaluate the function of the frontal lobes
Compare some of the testing for frontal lobes dysfunction
The problem of measuring frontal lobe abilities is that the test of frontal lobe function does not always measure the ability of the patient
Common methods of measuring frontal lobe ability
1. Sequent events logically and temporally
2. To reason abstractly – Wisconsin card sorting test – giving a stack of card containing broken down in 4 section red triangle -2 green star 3 yellow cross 4 blue circles they are giving 2 set of card 64x=128 and are told to organised them in to either colour shape or number and must change after ten correct response to another organising order – results how that patient with frontal lobe damage perform poorly more error and fail to complete the sorting – other problems is sorting card of 6 into two pile of 3 based on the designs of the card and building block according to high colour and shape – tower of London task see page 168
3. To be have spontaneously
4. Verbal fluency – measured by the controlled oral word association from the multilingual aphasia examination – this test require for the patient to name as many name possible begging with the letter giving – results show that patient perform poorly compared to controlled group
Give example of symptoms of frontal lobes dysfunctions
Answer these questions
Do the frontal lobes mediate intelligence?
How do the frontal lobes effect decision making and reasoning task?
Are the frontal lobes necessary for the theory of mind?
No comments:
Post a Comment