Reflexively mindblind: Using theory of mind to interpret behavior requires effortful attention

Are visual artists better visual perspective takers? An exploratory study with an unexpected outcome

Visual perspective taking (VPT) has been argued to elicit image-like representations of other people's visual experiences. Separately, it has been demonstrated that there are inter-individual differences in the ability to successfully take other people's visual perspectives. In the present study, adults were asked to judge how long two lines appeared visually from the point of view of an agent. The lines were of identical length, but the agent was always closer to one of the lines than the other, meaning that the closer line should be judged as appearing visually longer. It was hypothesised that adults with experience in the visual arts would perform better at this task for one or both of two reasons: (1) they should be more familiar with the knowledge that the closer an object is the larger it appears visually (i.e., the retinal image is larger), and (2) they might be able to "draw" an image-like representation that more accurately reflects the effect of distance on perceived size. Consistent with previous experiments with this paradigm, adults generally failed to judge the closest line as appearing longer; indeed, as many judged this line would appear visually shorter. Crucially, increasing experience in the visual arts failed to improve the accuracy of VPT judgements; even a group of professional illustrators failed to recognise that the line closest to the agent would appear longer than the line furthest from the agent. These results are discussed in the context of the processes and representation types potentially involved in VPT.

Mindreading quality versus quantity: A theoretically and empirically motivated two-factor structure for individual differences in adults' mindreading

Existing methods for studying individual differences in adults' mindreading often lack good psychometric characteristics. Moreover, it remains unclear, even in theory, how mindreading varies in adults who already possess an understanding of mental states. In this pre-registered study, it was hypothesised that adults vary in their motivation for mindreading and in the degree to which their answers on mindreading tasks are appropriate (context-sensitive). These factors are confounded in existing measures as they do not differentiate between the frequency of mental state terms (MST), indicative of motivation, and the quality of an explanation. Using an innovative scoring system, the current study examined whether individual differences in adult undergraduate psychology students' (N = 128) answer quality and / or quantity of explicit references to others' mental states on two open-ended response mindreading tasks were separable constructs, accounted for by mindreading motivation, and related differentially to measures previously linked with mindreading (e.g., religiosity, loneliness, social network size). A two-factor and one-factor model both provided acceptable fit. Neither model showed significant associations with mindreading motivation. However, a two-factor model (with MST and response appropriateness loading onto separate factors) provided greater explanatory power. Specifically, MST was positively associated with religiosity and response appropriateness was negatively associated with religiosity, whilst the one-factor solution did not predict any socially relevant outcomes. This provides some indication that mindreading quantity and mindreading quality may be distinguishable constructs in the structure of individual differences in mindreading.

Direct and indirect linguistic measures of common ground in dialogue studies involving a matching task: A systematic review

During dialogue, speakers attempt to adapt messages to their addressee appropriately by taking into consideration their common ground (i.e., all the information mutually known by the conversational partners) to ensure successful communication. Knowing and remembering what information is part of the common ground shared with a given partner and using it during dialogue are crucial skills for social interaction. It is therefore important to better understand how we can measure the use of common ground and to identify the potential associated psychological processes. In this context, a systematic review of the literature was performed to list the linguistic measures of common ground found in dialogue studies involving a matching task and to explore any evidence of cognitive and social mechanisms underlying common ground use in this specific experimental setting, particularly in normal aging and in neuropsychological studies. Out of the 23 articles included in this review, we found seven different linguistic measures of common ground that were classified as either a direct measure of common ground (i.e., measures directly performed on the referential content) or an indirect measure of common ground (i.e., measures assessing the general form of the discourse). This review supports the idea that both types of measures should systematically be used while assessing common ground because they may reflect different concepts underpinned by distinct psychological processes. Given the lack of evidence for the implication of other cognitive and social functions in common ground use in studies involving matching tasks, future research is warranted, particularly in the clinical field.

SHARP wit: Why receiving sarcasm improves perspective-taking

Despite its use of opposing expressions, sarcasm is often used to communicate a speaker's viewpoint. The current analysis explores whether and when sarcasm increases the recipients' understanding. We propose a theoretical model-the SHARP model-that specifies how sarcasm often helps activate perspective-taking. Our model proposes that sarcasm can provide the cognitive readiness and the motivational drive that enable recipients to see the world from the speaker's viewpoint. Building off findings in psychology and sociology, we hypothesize that sarcasm activates two precursors to perspective-taking: deliberate processing and open-mindedness. We also discuss three moderators that can reduce sarcasm's positive effects and even turn them negative. We call on future research to empirically test the SHARP model.

Perspective-taking in deriving implicatures: The listener's perspective is important too

Theories of meaning propose that listeners understand a speaker's implicit meaning thanks to mutually assumed norms of conversation that take into account what the speaker has said, as well as contextual factors, including what the speaker knows. Emerging psycholinguistic research shows that listeners derive a particular kind of implicit meaning, quantity implicatures, when their speaker is knowledgeable about the situation but tend to not derive it otherwise. In this article we focus on if and how listeners use the knowledge that is available only to themselves, i.e., the listener's perspective, while deriving implicatures. To do so, we explore the derivation of ad hoc quantity implicature in situations where the speaker does or does not have full knowledge, while, in the latter case, the listener has two types of privileged knowledge. Two versions of a study with neurotypical English-speaking adults show that listeners are influenced by their own perspective while deriving implicatures, depending on the type of knowledge available to them. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of pragmatic interpretative strategies.

Inconsistency in perspective-taking during comprehension

In order to successfully comprehend referring expressions, a listener must often consider how the speaker's perspective differs from their own. Such consideration of others' perspective is effortful and not always employed. Previous studies disagree about whether executive function predicts perspective-taking use in language comprehension. Furthermore, it is unclear whether or not there are consistent individual differences of perspective-taking ability in comprehension. This study tested participants in three perspective-taking in comprehension tasks and two measures of executive function to determine whether participants show consistency in their perspective-taking ability and whether this ability is predicted by measures of executive function. We found that (1) some but not all perspective-taking in comprehension tasks correlate with one another, and (2) inhibition control and working memory are not linked with any of the three perspective-taking measures. Based on these findings, we conclude that perspective-taking in comprehension may not be a unitary ability.

Reliability of the empathy selection task, a novel behavioral measure of empathy avoidance

The empathy selection task is a novel behavioral paradigm designed to assess an individual's willingness to engage in empathy. Work with this task has demonstrated that people prefer to avoid empathy when some other activity is available, though individual differences that might predict performance on this task have been largely unexamined. Here, we assess the suitability of the empathy selection task for use in individual difference and experimental research by examining its reliability within and across testing sessions. We compare the reliability of summary scores on the empathy selection task (i.e., proportion of empathy choices) as an individual difference metric to that of two commonly used experimental tasks, the Stroop error rate and go/no-go commission rate. Next, we assess systematic changes at the item/trial level using generalized multilevel modeling which considers participants' individual performance variation. Across two samples (N = 89), we find that the empathy selection task is stable between testing sessions and has good/substantial test-retest reliability (ICCs = .65 and .67), suggesting that it is comparable or superior to other commonly used experimental tasks with respect to its ability to consistently rank individuals.

Visuospatial perspective taking in people with Down syndrome

Visuospatial perspective taking (VPT) refers to the process of mentally representing a viewpoint different from one's own. It is related to mental rotation and theory of mind and helps to support some complex spatial activities such as wayfinding. Despite research advances in spatial cognition, little is known about VPT in people with Down syndrome (DS). Here, we examined VPT in people with DS. A total of 38 individuals with DS (aged 12-25 years old) and nonverbal ability-matched typically developing (TD) children (aged 4-9 years old) participated. They completed two VPT tasks: the classic Piagetian Three Mountains Task and a modified version of the "Dog Task" (Newcombe & Huttenlocher, 1992). For both groups, the Three Mountains Task was more difficult than the Dog Task, implying the impact of task complexity on assessing VPT. However, the overall performance did not differ between the TD and DS groups in either VPT task. Implications of the results were discussed.

Between alpha and gamma oscillations: Neural signatures of linguistic predictions and listener's attention to speaker's communication intention

When listeners hear a message produced by their interlocutor, they can predict upcoming words thanks to the sentential context and their attention can be focused on the speaker's communication intention. In two electroencephalographical (EEG) studies, we investigated the oscillatory correlates of prediction in spoken-language comprehension and how they are modulated by the listener's attention. Sentential contexts which were strongly predictive of a particular word were ended by a possessive adjective either matching the gender of the predicted word or not. Alpha, beta and gamma oscillations were studied as they were considered to play a crucial role in the predictive process. While evidence of word prediction was related to alpha fluctuations when listeners focused their attention on sentence meaning, changes in high-gamma oscillations were triggered by word prediction when listeners focused their attention on the speaker's communication intention. Independently of the endogenous attention to a level of linguistic information, the oscillatory correlates of word predictions in language comprehension were sensitive to the prosodic emphasis produced by the speaker at a late stage. These findings thus bear major implications for understanding the neural mechanisms that support predictive processing in spoken-language comprehension.

It's Not You, It's Me: A Review of Individual Differences in Visuospatial Perspective Taking

Visuospatial perspective taking (VSPT) concerns the ability to understand something about the visual relationship between an agent or observation point on the one hand and a target or scene on the other. Despite its importance to a wide variety of other abilities, from communication to navigation, and decades of research, there is as yet no theory of VSPT. Indeed, the heterogeneity of results from different (and sometimes the same) VSPT tasks point to a complex picture suggestive of multiple VSPT strategies, individual differences in performance, and context-specific factors that together have a bearing on both the efficiency and accuracy of outcomes. In this article, we review the evidence in search of patterns in the data. We found a number of predictors of VSPT performance but also a number of gaps in understanding that suggest useful pathways for future research and, possibly, a theory (or theories) of VSPT. Overall, this review makes the case for understanding VSPT by better understanding the perspective taker rather than the target agents or their perception.

Grammatical Perspective-Taking in Comprehension and Production

Language use in conversation requires conversation partners to consider each other's points-of-view, or perspectives. A large body of work has explored how conversation partners take into account differences in knowledge states when choosing referring expressions. This paper explores how well findings from perspective-taking in reference generalize to a relatively understudied domain of perspective: the processing of grammatical perspectival expressions like the motion verbs come and go in English. We re-visit findings from perspective-taking in reference that conversation participants are subject to egocentric biases: they are biased towards their own perspectives. Drawing on theoretical proposals for grammatical perspective-taking and prior experimental studies of perspective-taking in reference, we compare two models of grammatical perspective-taking: a serial anchoring-and-adjustment model, and a simultaneous integration model. We test their differing predictions in a series of comprehension and production experiments using the perspectival motion verbs come and go as a case study. While our comprehension studies suggest that listeners reason simultaneously over multiple perspectives, as in the simultaneous integration model, our production findings are more mixed: we find support for only one of the simultaneous integration model's two key predictions. More generally, our findings suggest a role for egocentric bias in production for grammatical perspective-taking as well as when choosing referring expressions.

The "curse of knowledge" when predicting others' knowledge

To succeed in a social world, we must be able to accurately estimate what others know. For example, teachers must anticipate student knowledge to plan lessons and communicate effectively. Yet one's own knowledge consistently contaminates estimates about others' knowledge. We examine how one's knowledge influences the calibration and resolution of participants' estimates of novices' knowledge. Across four experiments, participants studied trivia questions and estimated the percentage of novice participants who would know the answer across multiple study/estimation rounds. When participants were required to answer the question before estimating what novices would know, studying the facts impaired both the calibration and resolution of the estimates. Studying the facts reduced the validity of one's experiences for predicting novices' knowledge, and estimators utilized their own experiences less when predicting novices' knowledge as they studied. Experimentally reducing reliance on one's own knowledge did not improve the accuracy of estimates. The results suggest that learning impairs the accuracy of judgments of others' knowledge, not because estimators rely too heavily on their own experiences, but because estimators lack diagnostic cues about others' knowledge.

Reference production in Mandarin–English bilingual preschoolers: Linguistic, input, and cognitive factors

Reference in extended discourse is vulnerable to delayed acquisition in early childhood. Although recent research has increasingly focused on effects of linguistic, input, and cognitive factors on reference production, these studies are limited in number and the results are mixed. The present study provides insight into bilingual reference production by investigating how production of referring expressions in the two languages of preschool bilingual children may be influenced by structural similarities and differences between the languages, frequency of referring expressions in maternal input, amount of exposure to each of the languages, and working memory capacity. Using two stories in the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN), we examined character introduction and re-introduction in oral narratives of 4–6-year-old Singaporean bilingual children acquiring Mandarin Chinese and English (n = 21), and in child-directed speech of the mothers (n = 17). The children’s language exposure, executive function, and general bilingual proficiency were also recorded or directly tested through structured interviews with the parents or standardized assessments with the children. Data collection was conducted remotely in real time over a video-conferencing platform, supplemented by on-site audio recording to ensure sound quality. Results showed prolonged development in the production of felicitous REs for first mentions and over-reliance on overt marking of definiteness in our bilingual children. Mixed modeling revealed that frequency of felicitous REs in the input predicted children’s production of felicitous REs across languages and discourse functions, with a modulating effect of working memory. Overall, our findings are consistent with previous ones in that reference production is vulnerable in early Mandarin-English bilinguals in a multilingual society. This study also presents novel evidence that structural frequency in the input interacts with working memory in shaping patterns of reference production in bilingual children.

Age effects on processing spatial relations within different reference frames: The role of executive functions

Mental representations of space can be generated and communicated with respect to different reference frames and perspectives. The present study investigated the effects of age and individual differences in domain-general executive functions on people's ability to process spatial relations as expressed in language within different spatial reference frames (SRFs). Healthy adults aged between 18 and 85 completed a novel task involving self-, third-person-, object-, and environment-centered judgements of spatial relations between two objects, as well as standard tests of working memory, inhibition, and mental flexibility. A psychometric evaluation confirmed the test-retest reliability and the convergent and divergent validity of the new task. Results showed that the lifespan trajectories varied depending on the SRF. Processing from a self-centered perspective or an object-centered frame remained intact throughout the adult-lifespan. By contrast, spatial processing from a third-person-centered perspective or within an environment-centered frame declined in late adulthood. Mediation regression models showed that mental flexibility accounted for a significant part of the age-related variance in spatial processing across all allocentric SRFs. The age effects on environment-centered processing were also partially mediated by age-related changes in visuospatial working memory capacity. These findings suggest that at least partially distinct systems are involved in mentally representing space under different SRFs, which are differentially affected by typical aging. Our results also highlight that people's ability to process spatial relations across different SRFs depends on their capacity to employ domain-general effortful cognitive resources.

Pragmatic inferences in aging and human-robot communication

Despite the increase in research on older adults' communicative behavior, little work has explored patterns of age-related change in pragmatic inferencing and how these patterns are adapted depending on the situation-specific context. In two eye-tracking experiments, participants followed instructions like "Click on the greenhouse", which were either played over speakers or spoken live by a co-present robot partner. Implicit inferential processes were measured by exploring the extent to which listeners temporarily (mis)understood the unfolding noun to be a modified phrase referring to a competitor object in the display (green hat). This competitor was accompanied by either another member of the same category or an unrelated item (tan hat vs. dice). Experiment 1 (no robot) showed clear evidence of contrastive inferencing in both younger and older adults (more looks to the green hat when the tan hat was also present). Experiment 2 explored the ability to suppress these contrastive inferences when the robot talker was known to lack any color perception, making descriptions like "green hat" implausible. Younger but not older listeners were able to suppress contrastive inferences in this context, suggesting older adults could not keep the relevant limitations in mind and/or were more likely to spontaneously ascribe human attributes to the robot. Together, the findings enhance our understanding of pragmatic inferencing in aging.

Unaided communication behaviours displayed by adults with severe cerebrovascular accidents and little or no functional speech: A scoping review

BACKGROUND

Unaided communication behaviours may provide communication support for persons with severe cerebrovascular accidents (CVA), as these individuals often experience severe communication difficulties, regardless of the aetiology. Though often subtle, these behaviours are present during all stages of recovery, and therefore communication partners need to know not only which unaided strategies are used as communication attempts, but also what their function is (i.e., what the person aims to achieve with the communication).

AIM

To identify the unaided communication behaviours that adults with severe CVA and little or no functional speech use to communicate, and to determine the communication functions addressed by these behaviours.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

The study used a scoping review methodology and included articles on communication partners of persons with CVA published between 1986 and 2020. Initially the searches yielded 732 studies from which 211 duplicates were identified. The remaining studies (n = 531) were then screened on title, abstract and full-text level resulting in a final inclusion of 18 studies. Of the 18 studies, five were qualitative and 13 consisted of quantitative methodologies.

MAIN CONTRIBUTION

The subtle communication behaviours used by persons with CVA (and resultant severe communication difficulties) are often misinterpreted or overlooked by their partners. If partners are trained to recognise such subtle or unaided communication behaviours, they can provide adequate support to access a range of communication functions. The unaided communication behaviours, which include 13 primary behaviours ranging from non-linguistic to linguistic, were utilised to convey 31 communication functions classified into four main communication categories.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Although unaided communication behaviours often appear as limiting, they can be utilised to communicate various communication functions. The findings of this review support the training of partners to identify these behaviours and improve person-partner communication. WHAT IS KNOWN?: Unaided communication has been widely researched. However, a summary is needed of the various unaided communication behaviours and of the different communication functions addressed by these behaviours. What the paper adds… This paper emphasises that unaided communication behaviours range from non-linguistic to linguistic, and they can support unintentional, pre-intentional and intentional communication functions. Clinical implications Even though aided communication is preferred, unaided communication behaviours are generally used in contexts with limited resources, as well as among culturally and linguistically diverse populations. This study advocates the identification of unaided communication behaviours by partners as well as the support and provision of access to communication strategies for persons with severe CVA. Future research should include more untrained communication partners.

Importance of communication in medical practice and medical education: An emphasis on empathy and attitudes and their possible influences

BACKGROUND

Healthcare professionals need to be prepared to promote healthy lifestyles and care for patients. By focusing on what students should be able to perform one day as clinicians, we can bridge the gap between mere theoretical knowledge and its practical application. Gender aspects in clinical medicine also have to be considered when speaking of personalized medicine and learning curricula.

AIM

To determine sets of intellectual, personal, social, and emotional abilities that comprise core qualifications in medicine for performing well in anamnesis-taking, in order to identify training needs.

METHODS

An analysis of training clinicians’ conceptions with respect to optimal medical history taking was performed. The chosen study design also aimed to assess gender effects. Structured interviews with supervising clinicians were carried out in a descriptive study at the Medical University of Vienna. Results were analyzed by conducting a qualitative computer-assisted content analysis of the interviews. Inductive category formation was applied. The main questions posed to the supervisors dealt with (1) Observed competencies of students in medical history taking; and (2) The supervisor’s own conceptions of "ideal medical history taking".

RESULTS

A total of 33 training clinicians (n = 33), engaged in supervising medical students according to the MedUni Vienna’s curriculum standards, agreed to be enrolled in the study and met inclusion criteria. The qualitative content analysis revealed the following themes relevant to taking an anamnesis: (1) Knowledge; (2) Soft skills (relationship-building abilities, trust, and attitude); (3) Methodical skills (structuring, precision, and completeness of information gathering); and (4) Environmental/contextual factors (language barrier, time pressure, interruptions). Overall, health care professionals consider empathy and attitude as critical features concerning the quality of medical history taking. When looking at physicians’ theoretical conceptions, more general practitioners and psychiatrists mentioned attitude and empathy in the context of "ideal medical history taking", with a higher percentage of females. With respect to observations of students’ history taking, a positive impact from attitude and empathy was mainly described by male health care professionals, whereas no predominance of specialty was found. Representatives of general medicine and internal medicine, when observing medical students, more often emphasized a negative impact on history taking when students lacked attitude or showed non-empathetic behavior; no gender-specific difference was detected for this finding.

CONCLUSION

The analysis reveals that for clinicians engaged in medical student education, only a combination of skills, including adequate knowledge and methodical implementations, is supposed to guarantee acceptable performance. This study’s findings support the importance of concepts like relationship building, attitude, and empathy. However, there may be contextual factors in play as well, and transference of theoretical concepts into the clinical setting might prove challenging.

A Behavioral Science Framework for Understanding College Campus Sexual Assault

We propose a behavioral-science approach to sexual assault on college campuses. In this framework, people commit assault when aspects of the immediate situation trigger certain psychological states. No set of mental processes or situational configurations is a precise predictor of assault. Instead, the interaction between mental processes and situational configurations predicts when sexual assault is more or less likely to occur. We begin with an illustrative story to show how a behavioral-science approach is relevant to sexual assault. Next, we map out a framework that suggests how behavioral theories of situations and mental processes have been or could be used to describe, predict, and develop ideas for the reduction of sexual assault. Relevant situational configurations include geographical configurations, local situational and informational cues, and situation-based power. Theories of mental processes include person perception, social norms, moral reasoning, and goals. Our framework can be used to demonstrate how "good" people can commit assault and how individuals can and will refrain from assault within institutions with a "bad" record. Compared with previous theories of sexual assault, a behavioral-science framework offers unique understanding and generative methods for addressing sexual assault on college campuses.

Quantitative mental state attributions in language understanding

Human social intelligence relies on our ability to infer other people’s mental states such as their beliefs, desires, and intentions. While people are proficient at mental state inference from physical action, it is unknown whether people can make inferences of comparable granularity from simple linguistic events. Here, we show that people can make quantitative mental state attributions from simple referential expressions, replicating the fine-grained inferential structure characteristic of nonlinguistic theory of mind. Moreover, people quantitatively adjust these inferences after brief exposures to speaker-specific speech patterns. These judgments matched the predictions made by our computational model of theory of mind in language, but could not be explained by a simpler qualitative model that attributes mental states deductively. Our findings show how the connection between language and theory of mind runs deep, with their interaction showing in one of the most fundamental forms of human communication: reference.

Inhibitory Control was needed in Level-1 Visual Perspective Taking: A Developing Negative Priming Study

Aim

Previous studies have found that both children and adults have difficulties in dealing with judgments in which self-perspective differs from other-perspective, even in level-1 perspective-taking. However, the underlying cognitive mechanism of this is still unclear. In the present study, we designed a negative priming (NP) paradigm of the dot-perspective task to examine whether inhibitory control was required to overcome egocentric bias in level-1 visual perspective-taking in children and adults. We observed an NP effect in both children (n= 43) and adults (n= 40). However, there was no significant difference between children and adults on the magnitude of the NP effect, indicating that when children could overcome the egocentric bias, they had inhibitory control ability comparable to that of adults in level-1 other-perspective-taking.

Background

Visual perspective-taking is an indispensable ability in social interaction; hence, it has attracted great attention from researchers. However, the mechanism underlying this process remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the role of inhibitory control in level-1 visual perspective-taking from a developmental perspective in order to understand the performance differences in perspective-taking tasks between children and adults.

Methods

The NP paradigm was applied to the dot-perspective task. Participants' response times (RTs) and error rates (ERs) were recorded during the experiment. A 2 (trial type: test vs control, within-subject) × 2 (age: children vs adults) mix-design ANOVA was used to analyse the RTs and ERs data separately.

Results

We observed an NP effect for both children (7.31, t (42) = 2.78, p < 0.01, Cohen's d = 0.22) and adults (27.58, t (39) = 2.31, p < 0.05, Cohen's d = 0.21). However, the difference in the magnitude of the NP effect between children and adults was not significant (t (81) = 0.54, p = 0.59).

Conclusion

Inhibitory control was needed to overcome egocentric bias in level-1 visual perspective-taking for both children and adults. Moreover, when children could overcome egocentric bias, they had an inhibitory control ability comparable to that of adults.

No need to take what you already have: perspective taking's effect on empathic concern for low-need targets

Recent studies have (quite persuasively) challenged a previous body of work suggesting that taking the perspective of targets described as experiencing highly distressing plights would increase empathic concern for those targets. In the current study, we test whether perspective-taking might still increase empathic concern for targets in less negative predicaments. College participants (N = 303) were given either perspective-taking instructions, or no instructions, before reading posts from targets describing negative, but not terrible, experiences. Consistent with recent results challenging the effects of perspective taking, even for these low-need targets, perspective-taking instructions had no effect on empathic concern (nor on other empathic emotions). However, participants in the perspective-taking condition were more likely to reach out to the targets by writing them a note in response to the negative experience. Results are discussed in terms of perspective-taking instructions having little effect on what perspective takers feel but possibly some effect on what they do.

Preserved Perspective Taking in Free Indirect Discourse in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Perspective taking has been proposed to be impaired in persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially when implicit processing is required. In narrative texts, language perception and interpretation is fundamentally guided by taking the perspective of a narrator. We studied perspective taking in the linguistic domain of so-called Free Indirect Discourse (FID), during which certain text segments have to be interpreted as the thoughts or utterances of a protagonist without explicitly being marked as thought or speech representations of that protagonist (as in direct or indirect discourse). Crucially, the correct interpretation of text segments as FID depends on the ability to detect which of the protagonists "stands out" against the others and is therefore identifiable as implicit thinker or speaker. This so-called "prominence" status of a protagonist is based on linguistic properties (e.g., grammatical function, referential expression), in other words, the perspective is "hidden" and has to be inferred from the text material. In order to test whether this implicit perspective taking ability that is required for the interpretation of FID is preserved in persons with ASD, we presented short texts with three sentences to adults with and without ASD. In the last sentence, the perspective was switched either to the more or the less prominent of two protagonists. Participants were asked to rate the texts regarding their naturalness. Both diagnostic groups rated sentences with FID anchored to the less prominent protagonist as less natural than sentences with FID anchored to the more prominent protagonist. Our results that the high-level perspective taking ability in written language that is required for the interpretation of FID is well preserved in persons with ASD supports the conclusion that language skills are highly elaborated in ASD so that even the challenging attribution of utterances to protagonists is possible if they are only implicitly given. We discuss the implications in the context of claims of impaired perspective taking in ASD as well as with regard to the underlying processing of FID.

The Division of Labor in Communication: Speakers Help Listeners Account for Asymmetries in Visual Perspective

Recent debates over adults' theory of mind use have been fueled by surprising failures of perspective-taking in communication, suggesting that perspective-taking may be relatively effortful. Yet adults routinely engage in effortful processes when needed. How, then, should speakers and listeners allocate their resources to achieve successful communication? We begin with the observation that the shared goal of communication induces a natural division of labor: The resources one agent chooses to allocate toward perspective-taking should depend on their expectations about the other's allocation. We formalize this idea in a resource-rational model augmenting recent probabilistic weighting accounts with a mechanism for (costly) control over the degree of perspective-taking. In a series of simulations, we first derive an intermediate degree of perspective weighting as an optimal trade-off between expected costs and benefits of perspective-taking. We then present two behavioral experiments testing novel predictions of our model. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the presence or absence of occlusions in a director-matcher task. We found that speakers spontaneously modulated the informativeness of their descriptions to account for "known unknowns" in their partner's private view, reflecting a higher degree of speaker perspective-taking than previously acknowledged. In Experiment 2, we then compared the scripted utterances used by confederates in prior work with those produced in interactions with unscripted directors. We found that confederates were systematically less informative than listeners would initially expect given the presence of occlusions, but listeners used violations to adaptively make fewer errors over time. Taken together, our work suggests that people are not simply "mindblind"; they use contextually appropriate expectations to navigate the division of labor with their partner. We discuss how a resource-rational framework may provide a more deeply explanatory foundation for understanding flexible perspective-taking under processing constraints.

The Role of Executive Function and Theory of Mind in Pragmatic Computations

In sentences such as "Some dogs are mammals," the literal semantic meaning ("Some and possibly all dogs are mammals") conflicts with the pragmatic meaning ("Not all dogs are mammals," known as a scalar implicature). Prior work has shown that adults vary widely in the extent to which they adopt the semantic or pragmatic meaning of such utterances, yet the underlying reason for this variation is unknown. Drawing on theoretical models of scalar implicature derivation, we explore the hypothesis that the cognitive abilities of executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) contribute to this observed variation. In Experiment 1, we show that individuals with better ToM are more likely to compute a scalar implicature and adopt the pragmatic meaning of an utterance; however, EF makes no unique contribution to scalar implicature comprehension after accounting for ToM. In Experiment 2, we replicate this finding and assess whether it generalizes to the comprehension of other pragmatic phenomena such as indirect requests (e.g., "It's hot in here" uttered to ask for something to be done) and metaphor (e.g., "to harvest courage"). This is the first evidence that differences in ToM are associated with pragmatic competence in neurotypical adults across distinct pragmatic phenomena.

The neural underpinnings of allocentric thinking in a novel signaling task

The ability to adopt the perspectives of others is fundamental to effective communication in social interactions. However, the neural correlates of allocentric thinking in communicative signaling remain unclear. We adapted a novel signaling task in which the signaler was given the target word and must choose a one-word signal to help the receiver guess the target. Behavioral results suggest that speakers can use allocentric thinking to choose signals that are salient from the perspective of the receiver rather than their own point of view. At the neural level, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data reveal that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventral striatum, and temporal-parietal junction are more activated when signalers engage in allocentric than egocentric thinking. Moreover, functional connectivity between the mPFC and ventral striatum predicted individuals' perspective-taking ability during successful communication. These findings reveal that neural representations in the mPFC-striatum network support perspective-taking in complex social decision making, providing a new perspective on how the brain arbitrates between allocentric thinking and egocentric thinking in communication and social coordination.

Exploring the Multidimensional Links Between Trait Mindfulness and Trait Empathy

Empathy and mindfulness are currently major topics of scientific interest. Although it is well-known that mindfulness-typically as an outcome related to meditation-generates empathy at the state level, only a small number of studies have documented the trait (i.e., personality) level association between mindfulness and empathy. Furthermore, the underlying mechanisms (subcomponents and mediator variables) that support this association remain unclear. Thus, here, with a focus on the trait level, we investigated relationships among multiple subcomponents of trait mindfulness and trait empathy (Study 1). Next, we reexamined the aforementioned relationships in an independent sample, with the further aim of investigating relevant mediation factors (Study 2). We found that two attention-related components of trait mindfulness-observing and acting with awareness-reliably and positively related to both affective and cognitive dimensions of trait empathy (i.e., empathic concern and perspective taking). Furthermore, we found that effortful control, reappraisal, and trait alexithymia mediated relationships between the aforementioned attention-related components of trait mindfulness and empathic concern. Taken together, our results suggest that the links between mindfulness and empathy are multidimensional and complex. These findings may ultimately contribute to an understanding of the mechanisms underlying the positive effects of meditation on empathy.

Two independent sources of difficulty in perspective-taking/theory of mind tasks

Many perspective-taking and theory of mind tasks require participants to pass over the answer that is optimal from the self-perspective. For instance, in the classic change-of-location (false belief) task, participants are required to ignore where they know the object to be, and in the director task participants are required to ignore the best match for the instruction the other, less knowledgeable agent gives them (e.g., 'the top cup'). However, a second but equally critical requirement in such tasks is the ability to select a response which is wrong from the self-perspective; where the object is not, or an object that does not match the instruction (e.g., the middle cup instead of the top cup from one's own perspective). We present the results of an experiment that teases apart these two effects and demonstrate that both contribute independently to the difficulty in taking other perspectives. Reanalyses of data from previous experiments confirm this dual effect. These results suggest a revision of our understanding of egocentricity and difficulty in perspective-taking generally.

Alignment in Multimodal Interaction: An Integrative Framework

When people are engaged in social interaction, they can repeat aspects of each other's communicative behavior, such as words or gestures. This kind of behavioral alignment has been studied across a wide range of disciplines and has been accounted for by diverging theories. In this paper, we review various operationalizations of lexical and gestural alignment. We reveal that scholars have fundamentally different takes on when and how behavior is considered to be aligned, which makes it difficult to compare findings and draw uniform conclusions. Furthermore, we show that scholars tend to focus on one particular dimension of alignment (traditionally, whether two instances of behavior overlap in form), while other dimensions remain understudied. This hampers theory testing and building, which requires a well-defined account of the factors that are central to or might enhance alignment. To capture the complex nature of alignment, we identify five key dimensions to formalize the relationship between any pair of behavior: time, sequence, meaning, form, and modality. We show how assumptions regarding the underlying mechanism of alignment (placed along the continuum of priming vs. grounding) pattern together with operationalizations in terms of the five dimensions. This integrative framework can help researchers in the field of alignment and related phenomena (including behavior matching, mimicry, entrainment, and accommodation) to formulate their hypotheses and operationalizations in a more transparent and systematic manner. The framework also enables us to discover unexplored research avenues and derive new hypotheses regarding alignment.

Why are listeners sometimes (but not always) egocentric? Making inferences about using others' perspective in referential communication

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to understand others’ mental states, and that these mental states can differ from our own. Although healthy adults have little trouble passing conceptual tests of ToM (e.g., the false belief task [1]), they do not always succeed in using ToM [2,3]. In order to be successful in referential communication, listeners need to correctly infer the way in which a speaker’s perspective constrains reference and inhibit their own perspective accordingly. However, listeners may require prompts to take these effortful inferential steps. The current study investigated the possibility of embedding prompts in the instructions for listeners to make inference about using a speaker’s perspective. Experiment 1 showed that provision of a clear introductory example of the full chain of inferences resulted in large improvement in performance. Residual egocentric errors suggested that the improvement was not simply due to superior comprehension of the instructions. Experiment 2 further dissociated the effect by placing selective emphasis on making inference about inhibiting listeners’ own perspective versus using the speaker’s perspective. Results showed that only the latter had a significant effect on successful performance. The current findings clearly demonstrated that listeners do not readily make inferences about using speakers’ perspectives, but can do so when prompted.

Effort shapes social cognition and behaviour: A neuro-cognitive framework

Theoretical accounts typically posit that variability in social behaviour is a function of capacity limits. We argue that many social behaviours are goal-directed and effortful, and thus variability is not just a function of capacity, but also motivation. Leveraging recent work examining the cognitive, computational and neural basis of effort processing, we put forward a framework for motivated social cognition. We argue that social cognition is demanding, people avoid its effort costs, and a core-circuit of brain areas that guides effort-based decisions in non-social situations may similarly evaluate whether social behaviours are worth the effort. Thus, effort sensitivity dissociates capacity limits from social motivation, and may be a driver of individual differences and pathological impairments in social cognition.

Reflective function: A move to the level of concern

Reflective function (RF) is the capacity to reflect on one’s own thinking and feelings, as well as on that of others. It involves an increasingly complex awareness that there is more than what is visible on the surface. Most studies of RF have focused on its significance for self-development and interpersonal relationships in dyadic and family contexts. In this article, I suggest that by imparting a more accurate perception of the intra- and interpersonal reality and interrelatedness, RF is inextricably related to concern and to reaching others in widening circles. I further suggest that obstacles to its development and realization can be found at the individual, relational, and sociopolitical levels. I conclude that the construct of RF both captures and facilitates the connection between psychology and ethics, and that psychologists play a key role in exploring the conditions that affect the realization of RF, and in promoting social change in general.

Adolescents are delayed at inferring complex social intentions in others, but not basic (false) beliefs: An eye-movement investigation

Most developmental research on Theory of Mind (ToM)—our ability to infer the beliefs, intentions, and desires of others—has focused on the preschool years. This is unsurprising as it was previously thought that ToM skills are developed between the ages of 2 and 7 years. Over the last couple of decades however, studies have provided evidence for significant structural and functional changes in the brain areas involved in ToM (the “social brain”) not only during childhood but also during adolescence. Importantly, some of these findings suggest that the use of ToM shows a prolonged development through middle childhood and adolescence. Although evidence from previous studies suggests a protracted development of ToM, the factors that constrain performance during middle childhood and adolescence are only just beginning to be explored. In this article, we report two visual-world eye-tracking studies that focus on the timecourse of predictive inferences. We establish that when the complexity of ToM inferences are at a level which is comparable with standard change-of-location false-belief tasks, then adolescents and adults generate predictions for other agents’ behaviour in the same timecourse. However, when inferences are socially more complex, requiring inferences about higher order mental states, adolescents generate predictive gaze bias at a marked delay relative to adults. Importantly, our results demonstrate that these developmental differences go beyond differences in executive functions (inhibitory control or working memory) and point to distinct expectations between groups and greater uncertainty when predicting actions based on conflicting desires.

Autistic Traits and Prosocial Behaviour in the General Population: Test of the Mediating Effects of Trait Empathy and State Empathic Concern

Although the core characteristics associated with autistic traits are impaired social interactions, there are few studies examining how autistic traits translate into prosocial behaviour in daily life. The current study explored the effect of autistic traits on prosocial behaviour and the mediating role of multimodal empathy (trait empathy and state empathic concern). The results showed that autistic traits reduced prosocial behaviour directly and indirectly through complex mediation by multimodal empathy. The findings revealed the internal mechanism of autistic traits impeding prosocial behaviour and expanded our understandings of social behaviour in autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) and autistic traits in the general population. Furthermore, the results have implications for social adaptability interventions for individuals with ASCs and high levels of autistic traits.

Competitive children, cooperative mothers? Effect of various social factors on the retrospective and prospective use of theory of mind

Our capacity to attribute mental states to others, or theory of mind (ToM), affects the way in which we manage social interactions. Likewise, the social scenario in which we find ourselves probably influences our use of ToM. In this study, 6-year-old children and adult women participated in pairs in a task where participants needed to infer their partner's behavior considering the partner's visual perception (Experiment 1), knowledge (Experiment 2), and false belief (Experiment 3) regarding the placement of rewards under cups. The results were analyzed according to the temporal direction of the inference (past or future behavior of the partner), the social context (competition or cooperation), and-in the case of women-the type of social relationship with their partner (another adult or their own child). Children solved only the visual perception task, and adults solved the three tasks but performed better in the visual perception task than in the false belief task, suggesting that not only developmental issues but also differences in the intrinsic difficulty of the tasks underlie children's results. The temporal direction of the inference, in contrast, did not influence their results. Whereas children performed better in the competition context, adults performed better in the cooperation context in one experiment. Moreover, women avoided competing against their own child, and even cooperated with her or him when this was against their own interest, suggesting that cooperation between mothers and children might have been a key driving force in the evolution of ToM in our species.

Neural Activity and Decoding of Action Observation Using Combined EEG and fNIRS Measurement

In a social world, observing the actions of others is fundamental to understanding what they are doing, as well as their intentions and feelings. Studies of the neural basis and decoding of action observation are important for understanding action-related processes and have implications for cognitive, social neuroscience, and human-machine interaction (HMI). In the current study, we first investigated temporal-spatial dynamics during action observation using a combined 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG) and 48-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) system. We measured brain activation while 16 healthy participants observed three action tasks: (1) grasping a cup with the intention of drinking; (2) grasping a cup with the intention of moving it; and (3) touching a cup with an unclear intention. The EEG and fNIRS source analysis results revealed the dynamic involvement of both the mirror neuron system (MNS) and the theory of mind (ToM)/mentalizing network during action observation. The source analysis results suggested that the extent to which these two systems were engaged was determined by the clarity of the intention of the observed action. Based on the difference in neural activity observed among different action-observation tasks in the first experiment, we conducted a second experiment to classify the neural processes underlying action observation using a feature classification method. We constructed complex brain networks based on the EEG and fNIRS data. Fusing features from both EEG and fNIRS complex brain networks resulted in a classification accuracy of 72.7% for the three action observation tasks. This study provides a theoretical and empirical basis for elucidating the neural mechanisms of action observation and intention understanding, and a feasible method for decoding the underlying neural processes.

Empathy Impairment in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Conditions From a Multidimensional Perspective: A Meta-Analysis

Background: Although empathy has always been considered to be impaired in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs), the relevant findings have been inconsistent. The present meta-analysis aims to determine which empathy components are impaired and how culture, gender, and age moderate such empathy impairment.

Methods: By using “Autism,” “Asperger Syndrome,” “Empathy,” and related Chinese synonyms as keywords, we searched the databases of Weipu, Wanfang, CNKI, Web of Science, Science Direct, SpringerLink, and Elsevier through “subject” and “keyword” searches. We also conducted a manual search according to the references. In total, 51 studies from Eastern and Western countries were included in this meta-analysis, which comprised 144 independent effects, 2,095 individuals with ASCs and 2,869 controls without ASCs. For the retrieved data, Hedge's g was taken as the quantitative measure of effect, and CMA V2.0 software was used for publication bias tests (by using Rosenthal's Classic Failsafe-N and Egger's methods), heterogeneity tests (by using a Q-test, I²-test, and H-test) and a moderating effect test (by using a univariate regression model).

Results: The results showed that the empathy impairment evident in individuals with ASCs is component specific; that is, trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic concern, state-cognitive empathy, and state-empathic concern are impaired, whereas state-empathic accuracy remains intact, and trait-empathic accuracy is superior to the trait-empathic accuracy in neurotypical individuals. The univariate regression model showed that gender moderates the impairment of the trait-empathic concern, trait-empathic accuracy, and state-cognitive empathy in autistic individuals and that age moderates the impairment of the trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic accuracy, state-empathic concern, and state-empathic accuracy in autistic individuals. However, culture does not moderate any empathy components (trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic concern, or state-cognitive empathy) involved in the present meta-analysis.

Conclusions: These findings contribute to ending the controversy over the empathic integrity of individuals with ASCs and shed some light on future research about the empathy impairment of autistic individuals. More specifically, subsequent studies should distinguish specific empathy components and consider the role of gender and age when demonstrating empathy impairment in individuals with ASCs. Moreover, related studies based on Asian collectivist cultural samples and female samples should be further enriched.

Age of avatar modulates the altercentric bias in a visual perspective-taking task: ERP and behavioral evidence

Despite being able to rapidly and accurately infer their own and other peoples’ visual perspectives, healthy adults experience difficulty ignoring the irrelevant perspective when the two perspectives are in conflict; they experience egocentric and altercentric interference. We examine for the first time how the age of an observed person (adult vs. child avatar) influences adults’ visual perspective-taking, particularly the degree to which they experience interference from their own or the other person’s perspective. Participants completed the avatar visual perspective-taking task, in which they verified the number of discs in a visual scene according to either their own or an on-screen avatar’s perspective (Experiments 1 and 2) or only from their own perspective (Experiment 3), where the two perspectives could be consistent or in conflict. Age of avatar was manipulated between (Experiment 1) or within (Experiments 2 and 3) participants, and interference was assessed using behavioral (Experiments 1–3) and ERP (Experiment 1) measures. Results revealed that altercentric interference is reduced or eliminated when a child avatar was present, suggesting that adults do not automatically compute a child avatar’s perspective. We attribute this pattern to either enhanced visual processing for own-age others or an inference on reduced mental awareness in younger children. The findings argue against a purely attentional basis for the altercentric effect, and instead support an account where both mentalising and directional processes modulate automatic visual perspective-taking, and perspective-taking effects are strongly influenced by experimental context.

How do you know that? Automatic belief inferences in passing conversation

There is an ongoing debate, both in philosophy and psychology, as to whether people are able to automatically infer what others may know, or whether they can only derive belief inferences by deploying cognitive resources. Evidence from laboratory tasks, often involving false beliefs or visual-perspective taking, has suggested that belief inferences are cognitively costly, controlled processes. Here we suggest that in everyday conversation, belief reasoning is pervasive and therefore potentially automatic in some cases. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two pre-registered self-paced reading experiments (N1 = 91, N2 = 89). The results of these experiments showed that participants slowed down when a stranger commented 'That greasy food is bad for your ulcer' relative to conditions where a stranger commented on their own ulcer or a friend made either comment - none of which violated participants' common-ground expectations. We conclude that Theory of Mind models need to account for belief reasoning in conversation as it is at the center of everyday social interaction.

Preschoolers Flexibly Shift Between Speakers' Perspectives During Real-Time Language Comprehension

In communicative situations, preschoolers use shared knowledge, or "common ground," to guide their interpretation of a speaker's referential intent. Using eye-tracking measures, this study investigated the time course of 4-year-olds' (n = 95) use of two different speakers' perspectives and assessed how individual differences in this ability related to individual differences in executive function and representational skills. Gaze measures indicated partner-specific common ground guided children's interpretation from the earliest moments of language processing. Nonegocentric online processing was positively correlated with performance on a Level 2 visual perspective-taking task. These results demonstrate that preschoolers readily use the perspectives of multiple partners to guide language comprehension and that more advanced representational skills are associated with the rapid integration of common ground information.

Anchoring-and-Adjustment During Affect Inferences

People can easily infer the thoughts and feelings of others from brief descriptions of scenarios. But how do they arrive at these inferences? Three studies tested how, through anchoring-and-adjustment, people used semantic and numerical anchors (irrelevant values provided by experimenters) in inferring feelings from scenario descriptions. We showed that in a between-subject design, people’s inference was biased toward anchoring information (Studies 1 and 2). People made fewer adjustments (anchoring increased) under time pressure in the high-anchor condition but not in the low-anchor condition (Study 3). When inferring affect from scenario descriptions, not only did people integrate their inference with the context, they adjusted away from the initial anchors provided by the experimenters. However, time pressure discouraged people from making adequate adjustments.

Tracking Colisteners' Knowledge States During Language Comprehension

When we receive information in the presence of other people, are we sensitive to what they do or do not understand? In two event-related-potential experiments, participants read implausible sentences (e.g., "The girl had a little beak") in contexts that rendered them plausible (e.g., "The girl dressed up as a canary for Halloween"). No semantic-processing difficulty (no N400 effect) ensued when they read the sentences while alone in the room. However, when a confederate was present who did not receive the contexts so that the critical sentences were implausible for him or her, participants exhibited processing difficulty: the social-N400 effect. This effect was obtained when participants were instructed to adopt the confederate's perspective-and critically, even without such instructions-but not when performing a demanding comprehension task. Thus, unless mental resources are limited, comprehenders engage in modeling the minds not only of those individuals with whom they directly interact but also of those individuals who are merely present during the linguistic exchange.

When do Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Take Common Ground into Account During Communication?

One feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a deficit in verbal reference production, that is, providing an appropriate amount of verbal information for the listener to refer to things, people, and events. However, very few studies have manipulated whether individuals with ASD can take a speaker's perspective to interpret verbal reference. A critical limitation of all interpretation studies is that comprehension of another's verbal reference required the participant to represent only the other's visual perspective. Yet, many everyday interpretations of verbal reference require knowledge of social perspective (i.e., a consideration of which experiences one has shared with which interlocutor). We investigated whether 22 5;0-7;11-year-old children with ASD and 22 well-matched typically developing (TD) children used social perspective to comprehend (Study 1) and produce (Study 2) verbal reference. Social perspective-taking was manipulated by having children collaboratively complete activities with one of two interlocutors such that for a given activity, one interlocutor was Knowledgeable and one was Naïve. Study 1 found no between-group differences for the interpretation of ambiguous references based on social perspective. In Study 2, when producing referring terms, the ASD group made modifications based on listener needs, but this effect was significantly stronger in the TD group. Overall, the findings suggest that high-functioning children with ASD know with which interlocutor they have previously shared a given experience and can take this information into account to steer verbal reference. Nonetheless, they show clear performance limitations in this regard relative to well-matched controls. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1366-1375. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: No one had studied if young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could take into account previous collaboration with particular conversation partners to drive how well they communicate with others. In both their language understanding and spoken language, we found that five to 7-year-olds with ASD were able to consider what they had previously shared with the conversation partner. However, they were impaired when compared to typically developing children in the degree to which they tailored their spoken language for a specific listener.