Theory of Mind and Emotion Perception in People with Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorders (2009)

Undergraduate: Kate McIntyre

Faculty Advisor: David Penn
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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This honors thesis examines theory of mind and emotion perception in individuals with schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and a non-clinical control group. Thirty nine participants with schizophrenia, thirteen individuals with ASD, and thirty healthy controls participated in the study. It was hypothesized that individuals in the clinical groups (schizophrenia and ASD) would perform worse than non-clinical controls on social cognition tasks, with individuals with ASD showing the greatest impairments. Additionally, it was hypothesized the two clinical groups would perform worse on emotion perception tasks that target anger and fear versus all other emotions. Finally, in an exploratory aim, it was hypothesized that individuals with ASD and those high in negative symptoms of schizophrenia (NSS) would perform worse than healthy controls and those in the schizophrenia undefined (SU) group but similar to each other on ToM and emotion perception tasks.