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

In people who drink more, facets of theory of mind may be impaired by alcohol stimuli

BACKGROUND

Theory of mind (ToM) - the ability to understand others' beliefs, mental states, and knowledge - is an important part of successful social interaction. There is a growing (albeit mixed) evidence base suggesting that individuals with substance use disorder or who are intoxicated (relative to sober controls) perform worse on a number of ToM tasks. The aim of this study was to explore the hitherto little explored notion that ToM-related capabilities such as the ability to see the world from another person's perspective (termed Visual Perspective Taking; VPT), may be impacted by alcohol-related stimuli.

METHOD

In this pre-registered study, 108 participants (M age = 25.75, SD age = 5.67) completed a revised version of the director task where they followed the instructions of an avatar to move both alcohol beverages and soft drinks that were mutually visible (target objects) while avoiding those only visible to the participant (distractor items).

RESULTS

Contrary to predictions, accuracy was lower when the target drink was alcohol and the distractor was a soft drink, although higher AUDIT scores were associated with significantly lower accuracy when alcohol drinks were the distractor items.

CONCLUSIONS

There may be some contexts when being able to see alcohol beverages makes it harder to take another person's perspective. It also appears that poorer VPT and perhaps ToM capacity may be evident in individuals who consume more alcohol. Future research is warranted to examine how alcohol beverages, alcohol consumption behaviours, and intoxication interact to impact VPT capacity.