MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'baron cohen'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:46:14 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169581&cid=t_427154_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F08%2F27%2Fthe-science-of-evil%2F Following up on my review of Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test, I just finished reading the other new offering in the world of “psychopath studies”: Simone Baron-Cohen’s The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. Baron-Cohen’s central theory is that evil is critically tied to lack of empathy.  It’s a thought-provoking notion and I was very intrigued by the connections that he made between various “empathy deficient” conditions from psychopaths, to narcissists, to borderlines, to those on the autism spectrum. At points, I think he gets so carried away considering the particular dispositions of his “zero negatives” (those, like psychopaths, whose lack of empathy brings about “unequivocally bad” results) and “zero positives” (those, like Asperger�... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169581 Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:01:29 +0100 5169581 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2613893&cid=t_427154_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F07%2F18%2Fbruno-and-the-situation-of-humor-in-films%2F Larry Muhammad of the Courier Journal has an interesting piece on the response tactics of groups that have been the target of jokes in recent films, including in Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Bruno.”  We excerpt it below. * * * Has comedian Sacha Baron Cohen gone too far with his new movie, “Bruno”? Scan the cable news shows and the talk-radio dial and — between all the Michael Jackson talk — you’ll hear howls of outrage from some gay groups, angry that Cohen’s gay Austrian fashionista character reinforces stereotypes about homosexuals. * * * Last summer, demonstrators picketed outside showings of the Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder,” angry that a character named Simple Jack was repeatedly referred to as a “retard.” Of course... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2613893 Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:01:53 +0100 2613893 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1947284&cid=t_427154_133_f&fid=35096&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.b5media.com%2F%7Er%2Fb5media%2FAutismVox%2F%7E3%2FxD3Dg2h1PYs%2F “[A] sweeping theory of brain development that would change the way mental disorders like autism and schizophrenia are understood”——a “new idea” that “provides psychiatry with perhaps its grandest working theory since Freud, and one that is grounded in work at the forefront of science”: Today’s New York Times uses such grand language to introduce a new theory of psychiatric disorders in which parents’ genes are “in competition.” The theory is the work of Bernard Crespi, a biologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Christopher Badcock, a sociologist at the London School of Economics. Here’s how the New York Times describes it: Dr. Crespi and Dr. Badcock propose that an evolutionary tug of war between gene... Autism Vox blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1947284 Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:32:10 +0100 1947284 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2511019&cid=t_427154_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2Fwz0Pky7YTDM%2Fa-selection-of-strange-stories-theory-of-mind-autism-693.html Only the other week I was talking about the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes‘ task that Baron-Cohen employed in his 1997 research looking at high functioning adults with Autism and Aspergers. In order to validate the Eyes Task as a theory of mind task, participants in the two clinical groups (ASD & Tourette’s) were also tested on Happe’s Strange Stories. This assesses the ability to interpret a nonliteral statement. Relative to normal controls who were IQ and age-matched, individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome performed less well on the task, while performing normally on a non-mentalistic control task. Individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome could provide mental state answers, but had difficulty in providing contextually appropriate mental state answers.... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2511019 Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:57 +0100 2511019 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1876938&cid=t_427154_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F421039369%2Fa-selection-of-strange-stories-theory-of-mind-autism-693.html Only the other week I was talking about the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes‘ task that Baron-Cohen employed in his 1997 research looking at high functioning adults with Autism and Aspergers. In order to validate the Eyes Task as a theory of mind task, participants in the two clinical groups (ASD & Tourette’s) were also tested on Happe’s Strange Stories. This assesses the ability to interpret a nonliteral statement. Relative to normal controls who were IQ and age-matched, individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome performed less well on the task, while performing normally on a non-mentalistic control task. Individuals with autism or Asperger syndrome could provide mental state answers, but had difficulty in providing contextually appropriate mental state answers.... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1876938 Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:57 +0100 1876938 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1870900&cid=t_427154_133_f&fid=35096&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.b5media.com%2F%7Er%2Fb5media%2FAutismVox%2F%7E3%2FgCcByaTWylk%2F Deborah Lipsky was in her 40s when she found out that has autism, today’s Carroll County Times notes. Others have described getting diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in their 50s; Nicky Gottlieb was 21 when he was diagnosed, after his sister, Lizzie Gottlieb, started to make a documentary about him, Today’s Man. When claims of a recent and dramatic increase in the autism rate are used as evidence for an “epidemic of autism,” the question is asked about where are all the adults with autism. Psychology professor Simon Baron-Cohen has written about the very late diagnosis of autism: Baron-Cohen describes a “lost generation” of adults with AS who did not know what diagnosis they have—who did not know that what they have even existed. It was 25 years ago tha... Autism Vox blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1870900 Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:34:56 +0100 1870900 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2511021&cid=t_427154_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2Fcf5Hqz1qpJk%2Fautism-in-100-words-648.html A short article in the current BJ of Psychiatry where psychologits are asked to condense an important point, concept or theory into only 100 words.  A need for succinctness required.  This time around Baron-Cohen was asked for Autism in 100 words … here’s what he said:  Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) occur in 1% of the population, are strongly heritable, and result from atypical neurodevelopment. Classic autism and Asperger Syndrome (AS) share difficulties in social functioning, communication and coping with change, alongside unusually narrow interests. IQ is average or above in AS with average or even precocious age of language onset. Many areas within the ’social brain’ are atypical in ASC. ASC has a profile of impaired empathy alongside strong ’syste... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2511021 Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:14 +0100 2511021 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1852671&cid=t_427154_133_f&fid=35096&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.b5media.com%2F%7Er%2Fb5media%2FAutismVox%2F%7E3%2F1Qj4HTBMNi0%2F A study of autism among 378 Cambridge University students has found that autism is up to seven times more common among mathematicians than among students in other disciplines, and that it was also five times more common in the siblings of mathematicians, according to the October 5th Times. The genes that are thought to cause autism may also give mathematical, musical and other skills to those without autism. The study was led by Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre, who is quoted as saying: “It seems clear that genes play a significant role in the causes of autism and that those genes are also linked to certain intellectual skills.” Seven of the students in the Cambridge study were found to have autism, while only one in a control group of 414 had autism. Baron-Coh... Autism Vox blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1852671 Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:01:41 +0100 1852671 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1848507&cid=t_427154_109_f&fid=37784&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fpsychblog%2F%7E3%2F409739249%2Fautism-is-it-all-in-the-eyes-623.html I’ve written a lot about Autism here over the years and spoken about the different ways in which it has been suggested it was possible to find out if a person or child was autistic; from the Sally-Anne test to this more recent suggestion from Baron-Cohen et al. - the eyes and emotion recognition.  In his 1997 study Baron-Cohen used adult participants with autism or Aspergers and compared there ability to recognise emotions from only seeing the eyes of a target person with ‘normal’ participants and further group of participants with Tourettes.  He found that those with Autism performed significantly worse on the ‘eye task’.  He suggested that this could have significance relating to those with autism’s poor social skills and difficulty with social ... PsychBLOG.co.uk blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1848507 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:00:18 +0100 1848507 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1812831&cid=t_427154_133_f&fid=35096&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.b5media.com%2F%7Er%2Fb5media%2FAutismVox%2F%7E3%2F3a6tTnd2D8Y%2F Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge University and director of the Autism Research Center in today’s Independent: The word ‘disorder’ is too negative. I use the word “condition” – autism can be disabling, but not all of its features involve disability. Some of them are strengths. The majority of people with autism have exceptional attention to detail. Sometimes that’s also expressed as a talent in drawing, music or in spotting patterns in mathematics. It’s important to value those aspects of autism that are special, which can sometimes give rise to talents. The highlight of my career has been meeting students who I’m meant to be teaching, but they teach me just as much, if not more. It worries me sligh... Autism Vox blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1812831 Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:00:18 +0100 1812831 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1794797&cid=t_427154_109_f&fid=36089&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F09%2F16%2Fthe-interior-situation-of-complex-human-feelings%2F Michael Craig Miller, M.D. has a helpful article, “Sad Brain, Happy Brain,” in this week’s Newsweek.  Here are some excerpts. * * * The brain is the mind is the brain. One hundred billion nerve cells, give or take, none of which individually has the capacity to feel or to reason, yet together generating consciousness. For about 400 years, following the ideas of French philosopher René Descartes, those who thought about its nature considered the mind related to the body, but separate from it. In this model—often called “dualism” or the mind-body problem—the mind was “immaterial,” not anchored in anything physical. Today neuroscientists are finding abundant evidence . . . that separating mind from brain makes no sense. Nobel Prize-winning psyc... The Situationist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1794797 Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:35:53 +0100 1794797 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=741436&cid=t_427154_87_f&fid=34882&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbreathspakids.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fben-goldacre-breaks-his-silence-on.html I recently complained about the standard of coverage of MMR and autism issues in the UK media alongside the ubiquitous hagiographies of Dr Andrew Wakefield.The belief in a link between MMR-vaccines-mercury-autism has cultish overtones. Most religions have an act of contrition. UK media collectively need to make an act of contrition and perform an act of reparation. The latter, of course, should take the form of some informed coverage. I would nominate Ben Goldacre (who is uncharacteristically/ominously quiet at present) but then what would somebody who is medically qualified and known for promoting the public understanding of science (awards and everything) have to add to this discussion?Ben Goldacre has broken his silence with an article in the BMJ: MMR: the scare stories are back (also a... Breath Spa for Kids blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=741436 Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:18:00 +0100 741436