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Zhou S, Yang H, Wang Y, Zhou X, Li S. Spontaneous visual perspective-taking with constant attention cue: A modified dot-perspective task paradigm. Atten Percept Psychophys 2024; 86:1176-1185. [PMID: 37684500 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02772-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/10/2023]
Abstract
It has been argued that humans can employ mentalizing implicitly and automatically, even with others' visual experiences. In terms of visual perspective-taking (i.e., inferring another's visual experience), the Dot Perspective Task has been considered to provide evidence for this hypothesis. People were found to respond slower when their visual experience was inconsistent with others' (referred to as the consistency effect). However, the specific underlying cognitive process of the consistency effect has been a topic of intense debate, i.e., whether the consistency effect represents a process of social cognition such as mentalizing. Here, we introduce a modified version of the Dot Perspective Task, in which all the targets appear at the position where the avatar is gazing, while some of the targets are invisible to the avatar due to a barrier that may block the avatar's line of sight. Therefore, the effect of perspective-taking and attention-cueing can be better disassociated in the modified paradigm. The results of Experiment 1 illustrated a significant consistency effect, which was further confirmed in Experiment 2. More importantly, the consistency effect was absent in Experiment 3, where the avatar sat with his back to the participants. These findings imply that the consistency effect reflects the automatic computation of others' visual information, and rule out the attention-cueing account of the consistency effect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Song Zhou
- School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Huaqi Yang
- School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Ying Wang
- School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Xinyue Zhou
- School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Shiyi Li
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300074, China.
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
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2
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Gardner MR, Buchanan T. Spontaneous perspective-taking and its relation to schizotypy. Cogn Neuropsychiatry 2023; 28:181-195. [PMID: 36924343 DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2023.2189575] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/18/2023]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Patients with schizophrenia differ from healthy controls in the extent that they spontaneously take another's perspective. For such effects, it is difficult to separate the influence of schizophrenia from multiple potential confounders. Here, for the first time, associations between spontaneous perspective-taking and schizotypy were investigated in a nonclinical population. METHODS Adult participants completed both a Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ-BRU) and a novel online adaptation of a visual perspective-taking task that required participants to make judgements both from their own perspective and that of a human avatar. RESULTS Response times were elevated when the avatar's perspective was inconsistent with that of the participant, providing evidence of spontaneous perspective-taking. This demonstrates that the visual perspective-taking task can be successfully implemented in an online format. However, schizotypy did not predict these spontaneous perspective-taking effects. CONCLUSIONS Unlike explicit mentalising, this form of implicit mentalising is not affected by nonclinical manifestations of schizotypy traits. This implies that impairment of general neurocognitive function contributes to altered spontaneous perspective-taking in schizophrenia. A novel account based on the cognitive control processes involved in perspective selection and the role of attention in perspective calculation reconciles apparently contradictory findings of earlier studies comparing patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Tom Buchanan
- Psychology, University of Westminster, London, UK
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3
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Csulak T, Hajnal A, Kiss S, Dembrovszky F, Varjú-Solymár M, Sipos Z, Kovács MA, Herold M, Varga E, Hegyi P, Tényi T, Herold R. Implicit Mentalizing in Patients With Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Front Psychol 2022; 13:790494. [PMID: 35185724 PMCID: PMC8847732 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.790494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2021] [Accepted: 01/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Mentalizing is a key aspect of social cognition. Several researchers assume that mentalization has two systems, an explicit one (conscious, relatively slow, flexible, verbal, inferential) and an implicit one (unconscious, automatic, fast, non-verbal, intuitive). In schizophrenia, several studies have confirmed the deficit of explicit mentalizing, but little data are available on non-explicit mentalizing. However, increasing research activity can be detected recently in implicit mentalizing. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to summarize the existing results of implicit mentalizing in schizophrenia. METHODS A systematic search was performed in four major databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Web of Science. Eleven publications were selected. Five studies were found to be eligible for quantitative synthesis, and 9 studies were included in qualitative synthesis. RESULTS The meta-analysis revealed significantly lower accuracy, slower reaction time during implicit mentalizing in patients with schizophrenia. The systematic review found different brain activation pattern, further alterations in visual scanning, cue fixation, face looking time, and difficulties in perspective taking. DISCUSSION Overall, in addition to the deficit of explicit mentalization, implicit mentalization performance is also affected in schizophrenia, if not to the same extent. It seems likely that some elements of implicit mentalization might be relatively unaffected (e.g., detection of intentionality), but the effectiveness is limited by certain neurocognitive deficits. These alterations in implicit mentalizing can also have potential therapeutic consequences.Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier: CRD42021231312.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timea Csulak
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary.,Doctoral School of Clinical Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - András Hajnal
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Szabolcs Kiss
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Fanni Dembrovszky
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Margit Varjú-Solymár
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Zoltán Sipos
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Márton Aron Kovács
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary.,Doctoral School of Clinical Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Márton Herold
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary.,Doctoral School of Clinical Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Eszter Varga
- Department of Pediatrics, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Péter Hegyi
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Tamás Tényi
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Róbert Herold
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
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Abstract
Studies of visual perspective-taking have shown that adults can rapidly and accurately compute their own and other peoples’ viewpoints, but they experience difficulties when the two perspectives are inconsistent. We tested whether these egocentric (i.e., interference from one’s own perspective) and altercentric biases (i.e., interference from another person’s perspective) persist in ecologically valid complex environments. Participants (N = 150) completed a dot-probe visual perspective-taking task, in which they verified the number of discs in natural scenes containing real people, first only according to their own perspective and then judging both their own and another person’s perspective. Results showed that the other person’s perspective did not disrupt self perspective-taking judgements when the other perspective was not explicitly prompted. In contrast, egocentric and altercentric biases were found when participants were prompted to switch between self and other perspectives. These findings suggest that altercentric visual perspective-taking can be activated spontaneously in complex real-world contexts, but is subject to both top-down and bottom-up influences, including explicit prompts or salient visual stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paola Del Sette
- Department of Brain and Behavioural Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
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Fan C, Susilo T, Low J. Consistency effect in Level-1 visual perspective-taking and cue-validity effect in attentional orienting: Distinguishing the mentalising account from the submentalising account. VISUAL COGNITION 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2020.1857488] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Cong Fan
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
| | - Tirta Susilo
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
| | - Jason Low
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
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Abstract
Research on the capacity to understand others' minds has tended to focus on representations of beliefs, which are widely taken to be among the most central and basic theory of mind representations. Representations of knowledge, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention and have often been understood as depending on prior representations of belief. After all, how could one represent someone as knowing something if one doesn't even represent them as believing it? Drawing on a wide range of methods across cognitive science, we ask whether belief or knowledge is the more basic kind of representation. The evidence indicates that non-human primates attribute knowledge but not belief, that knowledge representations arise earlier in human development than belief representations, that the capacity to represent knowledge may remain intact in patient populations even when belief representation is disrupted, that knowledge (but not belief) attributions are likely automatic, and that explicit knowledge attributions are made more quickly than equivalent belief attributions. Critically, the theory of mind representations uncovered by these various methods exhibit a set of signature features clearly indicative of knowledge: they are not modality-specific, they are factive, they are not just true belief, and they allow for representations of egocentric ignorance. We argue that these signature features elucidate the primary function of knowledge representation: facilitating learning from others about the external world. This suggests a new way of understanding theory of mind-one that is focused on understanding others' minds in relation to the actual world, rather than independent from it.
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O'Grady C, Scott-Phillips T, Lavelle S, Smith K. Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2020; 73:1605-1628. [PMID: 32718242 PMCID: PMC7551223 DOI: 10.1177/1747021820942479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Data from a range of different experimental paradigms—in particular (but not
only) the dot perspective task—have been interpreted as evidence that humans
automatically track the perspective of other individuals. Results from other
studies, however, have cast doubt on this interpretation, and some researchers
have suggested that phenomena that seem like perspective-taking might instead be
the products of simpler behavioural rules. The issue remains unsettled in
significant part because different schools of thought, with different
theoretical perspectives, implement the experimental tasks in subtly different
ways, making direct comparisons difficult. Here, we explore the possibility that
subtle differences in experimental method explain otherwise irreconcilable
findings in the literature. Across five experiments we show that the classic
result in the dot perspective task is not automatic (it is not purely
stimulus-driven), but nor is it exclusively the product of simple behavioural
rules that do not involve mentalising. Instead, participants do compute the
perspectives of other individuals rapidly, unconsciously, and involuntarily, but
only when attentional systems prompt them to do so (just as, for instance, the
visual system puts external objects into focus only as and when required). This
finding prompts us to clearly distinguish spontaneity from automaticity.
Spontaneous perspective-taking may be a computationally efficient means of
navigating the social world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cathleen O'Grady
- School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Thom Scott-Phillips
- Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.,Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham, UK
| | - Suilin Lavelle
- School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Kenny Smith
- School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
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Abstract
Theory of mind (ToM) is defined as the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and is often said to be one of the cornerstones of efficient social interaction. In recent years, a number of authors have suggested that one particular ToM process occurs spontaneously in that it is rapid and outside of conscious control. This work has argued that humans efficiently compute the visual perspective of other individuals. In this article, we present a critique of this notion both on empirical and theoretical grounds. We argue that the experiments and paradigms that purportedly demonstrate spontaneous perspective-taking have not as yet convincingly demonstrated the existence of such a phenomenon. We also suggest that it is not possible to represent the percept of another person, spontaneous or otherwise. Indeed, the perspective-taking field has suggested that humans can represent the visual experience of others. That is, going beyond assuming that we can represent another's viewpoint in anything other than symbolic form. In this sense, the field suffers from the same problem that afflicted the "pictorial" theory in the mental imagery debate. In the last section we present a number of experiments designed to provide a more thorough assessment of whether humans can indeed represent the visual experience of others.
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Gao Q, Chen W, Wang Z, Lin D. Secret of the Masters: Young Chess Players Show Advanced Visual Perspective Taking. Front Psychol 2019; 10:2407. [PMID: 31708844 PMCID: PMC6821682 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02407] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2019] [Accepted: 10/09/2019] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Playing chess requires perspective taking in order to consistently infer the opponent's next moves. The present study examined whether long-term chess players are more advanced in visual perspective taking tasks than their counterparts without chess training during laboratory visual perspective taking tasks. Visual perspective taking performance was assessed among 11- to 12-year-old experienced chess players (n = 15) and their counterparts without chess training (n = 15) using a dot perspective task. Participants judged their own and the avatar's visual perspective that were either consistent with each other or not. The results indicated that the chess players out-performed the non-chess players (Experiment 1), yet this advantage disappeared when the task required less executive functioning (Experiment 2). Additionally, unlike the non-chess players whose performance improved in Experiment 2 when the executive function (EF) demand was reduced, the chess players did not show better perspective taking under such condition. These findings suggested that long-term chess experience might be associated with children's more efficient perspective taking of other people's viewpoints without exhausting their cognitive resources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiyang Gao
- Center for Brain, Mind and Education, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing, China
| | - Wei Chen
- Center for Brain, Mind and Education, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing, China
| | - Zhenlin Wang
- Department of Psychology, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong
| | - Dan Lin
- Department of Psychology, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong
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Pesimena G, Wilson CJ, Bertamini M, Soranzo A. The Role of Perspective Taking on Attention: A Review of the Special Issue on the Reflexive Attentional Shift Phenomenon. Vision (Basel) 2019; 3:vision3040052. [PMID: 31735853 PMCID: PMC6969940 DOI: 10.3390/vision3040052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2019] [Revised: 09/27/2019] [Accepted: 09/30/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Attention is a process that alters how cognitive resources are allocated, and it allows individuals to efficiently process information at the attended location. The presence of visual or auditory cues in the environment can direct the focus of attention toward certain stimuli even if the cued stimuli are not the individual’s primary target. Samson et al. demonstrated that seeing another person in the scene (i.e., a person-like cue) caused a delay in responding to target stimuli not visible to that person: “alter-centric intrusion.” This phenomenon, they argue, is dependent upon the fact that the cue used resembled a person as opposed to a more generic directional indicator. The characteristics of the cue are the core of the debate of this special issue. Some maintain that the perceptual-directional characteristics of the cue are sufficient to generate the bias while others argue that the cuing is stronger when the cue has social characteristics (relates to what another individual can perceive). The research contained in this issue confirms that human attention is biased by the presence of a directional cue. We discuss and compare the different studies. The pattern that emerges seems to suggest that the social relevance of the cue is necessary in some contexts but not in others, depending on the cognitive demand of the experimental task. One possibility is that the social mechanisms are involved in perspective taking when the task is cognitively demanding, while they may not play a role in automatic attention allocation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriele Pesimena
- Department of Psychology Politics and Sociology, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S10 2BP, UK;
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +44-(0)114-225-5555
| | - Christopher J. Wilson
- School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law, Teesside University, Middlesbrough TS1 3BX, UK;
| | - Marco Bertamini
- Department of Psychological Science, Liverpool University, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK;
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Alessandro Soranzo
- Department of Psychology Politics and Sociology, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S10 2BP, UK;
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Todd AR, Simpson AJ, Cameron CD. Time pressure disrupts level-2, but not level-1, visual perspective calculation: A process-dissociation analysis. Cognition 2019; 189:41-54. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.03.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2018] [Revised: 02/28/2019] [Accepted: 03/02/2019] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
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