Does experience with role play activate ^|^ldquo;mindreading^|^rdquo; in a perspective-taking task?

Abstract

This study investigated the development of "mindreading" in young adults. Forty university students were divided into two groups (role-play group and no-role-play group). Then they participated in a perspective-taking task in which the use of mindreading is essential. The participants viewed a computer display of eight familiar objects in different compartments of a wall divider with four rows of four compartments. Some of the compartments were open to see through, while others had back panels and thus which, if any, object was present could only be seen from the participant's side. They were instructed to touch the display corresponding to an object in a compartment in accord with the instructions of a "manager" who stood behind the divider and thus could not see into all of the compartments. The no-role-play group made more errors than the role-play group, and took longer to respond. The effects of role play lasted during five successive task blocks. These results suggest that experience with role play activates mindreading in this perspective-taking task.

Role-Play Experience Facilitates Reading the Mind of Individuals with Different Perception

“…This supports hypothesis A, “the role-play group will respond with equal accuracy whether the communication partner has restricted color vision or not. The no-role-play group will make more errors when the communication partner has restricted color vision, than when the communication partner has normal color vision.” This result is consistent with previous studies (e.g., [10]) in which the role-play group responded accurately when the communication partner could not see all of the objects, because some of them were physically occluded.…”

“…The role-play group responded more quickly than the no-role-play group in both conditions. This partly supports hypothesis B, “the role-play group will respond more quickly than the no-role-play group, when the communication partner has restricted color vision.” This result is inconsistent with previous research, which suggests that the role-play group will respond more quickly only when there is a difference of mental state between participants and communication partner [10]. The current experiment used a block design model, so participants had to switch mindreading approach depending on the communication partner, when blocks were changed.…”

“…Participants can see all of objects but Director cannot see some of them because of occlusion of the shelves (c.f., [3]–[5], [10], [13]). In this study, we investigate the ability to read the mind of people with different perception even when they see the same scene.…”

“…Monkey's responses were presented by an animation. He responded correctly only in response to the third instruction sheet, according to the previous research (c.f., [10]). After five instructions had been completed, the experimenter asked participants whether Monkey responded correctly.…”

“…Apperly reviewed papers which argued the relationships between mindreading ability and social experience. Furumi and Koyasu [10] investigated the effect of role-play as a social experience. In this study, exploring mindreading in adults, participants had an experience of playing another's role.…”