Encoding of others’ beliefs without overt instruction

Cohen, Adam S.; German, Tamsin C.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.03.004

Cited by 39 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Some researchers have suggested that this general approach can also be applied in the study of theory-of-mind (Cohen & German, 2009; Apperly & Butterfill, 2009). They suggest that there is a quick heuristic system for automatically calculating others’ mental states, alongside a slower more effortful system.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Syntax and intentionality: An automatic link between language and theory-of-mind

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Three studies provided evidence that syntax influences intentionality judgments. In Experiment 1, participants made either speeded or unspeeded intentionality judgments about ambiguously intentional subjects or objects. Participants were more likely to judge grammatical subjects as acting intentionally in the speeded relative to the reflective condition (thus showing an intentionality bias), but grammatical objects revealed the opposite pattern of results (thus showing an unintentionality bias). In Experiment 2, participants made an intentionality judgment about one of the two actors in a partially symmetric sentence (e.g., “John exchanged products with Susan”). The results revealed a tendency to treat the grammatical subject as acting more intentionally than the grammatical object. In Experiment 3 participants were encouraged to think about the events that such sentences typically refer to, and the tendency was significantly reduced. These results suggest a privileged relationship between language and central theory-of-mind concepts. More specifically, there may be two ways of determining intentionality judgments: (1) an automatic verbal bias to treat grammatical subjects (but not objects) as intentional (2) a deeper, more careful consideration of the events typically described by a sentence.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Syntax and intentionality: An automatic link between language and theory-of-mind

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An important question is whether or not the costly nature of ÔTheory of MindÕ (ToM) processes observed in past studies is an integral part the inferences themselves, making them different or delayed with respect to inferences about behaviour not drawing on mental state information. This issue has recently been addressed in terms of whether ToM inferences are made automatically-or whether they only come into play under certain circumstances (as in Apperly et al, 2006;Back & Apperly, 2010;Cohen & German, 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Listeners' eyes reveal spontaneous sensitivity to others' perspectives

Ferguson

Breheny

2012

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

very little is known about the time-course with which such perspective information influences communication. We report a novel interactive Ôvisual worldÕ study examining these processes. Here, two communicators watched videos depicting transfer events and subsequently described these events to each other. Critically, on half the trials a screen blocked the speakersÕ (but not the listenersÕ) view part-way through the video, establishing a discrepancy in the knowledge held by the two communicators. Eye-tracking analyses showed that listeners were rapidly sensitive to their partnerÕs perspective, as evidenced by a significantly reduced reality-bias when speakers held out-of-date knowledge about a privileged transfer event. However, we also found that under these conditions, listeners suffered ongoing interference from their own knowledge of reality, which inhibited successful anticipation of the speakerÕs intended referents.

show abstract

“…Schneider's work suggests this Type 1 mindreading of belief-like states occurs without any conscious awareness (Schneider et al, 2012a), and is unintentional and uncontrollable (Schneider et al, 2014). Other automaticity studies (e.g., Cohen & German, 2009) use a similar setup, having participants explicitly engage in a non-mindreading, object-tracking task. But they instead use a verbal task: they measure participants' reaction times in responding to questions about the object's location at the end of the video (e.g., "It is true that the object is in the location on the left") vs. questions about the agent's belief (e.g., "She thinks the object is in the location on the left").…”

Section: Applications Of Type 1 Minimal Mindreading Of Belief-like Smentioning

confidence: 99%