Evidence for spontaneous level-2 perspective taking in adults

Elekes, Fruzsina; Varga, Máté; Király, Ildikó

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2016.02.010

Cited by 60 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…However, recent findings with adults show more complex online mindreading skills than previously reported. Specifically, recent studies show that adults can compute how objects look from another perspective in an online, uninstructed, and flexible way (Elekes, Varga, & Király, ; Surtees, Apperly, & Samson, ; Surtees, Samson, & Apperly, ). The current study takes the first step to assess the same skill in school‐aged children.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Level‐2 perspectives computed quickly and spontaneously: Evidence from eight‐ to 9.5‐year‐old children

Elekes

Varga

Király

2017

British J of Dev Psycho

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It has been widely assumed that computing how a scene looks from another perspective (level-2 perspective taking, PT) is an effortful process, as opposed to the automatic capacity of tracking visual access to objects (level-1 PT). Recently, adults have been found to compute both forms of visual perspectives in a quick but context-sensitive way, indicating that the two functions share more features than previously assumed. However, the developmental literature still shows the dissociation between automatic level-1 and effortful level-2 PT. In the current paper, we report an experiment showing that in a minimally social situation, participating in a number verification task with an adult confederate, eight- to 9.5-year-old children demonstrate similar online level-2 PT capacities as adults. Future studies need to address whether online PT shows selectivity in children as well and develop paradigms that are adequate to test preschoolers' online level-2 PT abilities. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Adults can access how objects appear to others (level-2 perspective) spontaneously and online Online level-1, but not level-2 perspective taking (PT) has been documented in school-aged children What the present study adds? Eight- to 9.5-year-olds performed a number verification task with a confederate who had the same task Children showed similar perspective interference as adults, indicating spontaneous level-2 PT Not only agent-object relations but also object appearances are computed online by eight- to 9.5-year-olds.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Level‐2 perspectives computed quickly and spontaneously: Evidence from eight‐ to 9.5‐year‐old children

Elekes

Varga

Király

2017

British J of Dev Psycho

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“…Moreover, as we saw in the discussion of Elekes et al (2016) and , the availability of relevant background knowledge enables the mindreading system with a way to circumvent slower, more effortful forms of reasoning. Notably, in these studies, the relevant background knowledge was not antecedently available to the participants when they first engaged in the task.…”

Section: Conclusion: Efficient Context-sensitive Mindreadersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Collectively, the results of Elekes et al (2016) and yield a number of conclusions regarding Level-2 perspective-taking, as well as some open questions. First, using a live participant instead of an avatar seems to increase the likelihood that subjects will spontaneously adopt another agent's Level-2 perspective, even when it is not relevant to their overt goals; however, the mere presence of a live participant is not sufficient for this to occur.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Like Elekes et al (2016), they used a number-verification task that used live partners seated on opposite sides of a display that lay flat on the table between them; in one of the experiments, Surtees et al also included a version of that task where one partner made judgments about a surface feature of the numeral on the screen, rather than its value. And just like in the Elekes et al design, subjects only ever had to judge the value of the number from their own perspective -the perspective of the other participant was always taskirrelevant.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Elekes and colleagues investigated this possibility by creating a modified version of the numberperspective task, which subjects either completed by themselves (the Individual condition) or with another participant (the Joint condition) (Elekes et al 2016). This initial modification of the number-perspective task is especially noteworthy: while a nondescript avatar might be salient enough to warrant Level-1 perspective-taking, it is not obvious that participants would care enough to go to the trouble of maintaining a representation of its Level-2 perspectives.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Spontaneous mindreading: a problem for the two-systems account

Westra

2016

Synthese

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According to the two-systems account of mindreading, our mature perspectivetaking abilities are subserved by two distinct mindreading systems: a fast but inflexible, "implicit" system, and a flexible but slow "explicit" one. However, the currently available evidence on adult perspective-taking does not support this account. Specifically, both Level-1 and Level-2 perspective-taking show a combination of efficiency and flexibility that is deeply inconsistent with the two-systems architecture. This inconsistency also turns out to have serious consequences for the two-systems framework as a whole, both as an account of our mature mindreading abilities and of the development of those abilities. What emerges from this critique is a conception of context-sensitive, spontaneous mindreading that may provide insight into how mindreading functions in complex social environments. This in turn offers a bulwark against skepticism about the role of mindreading in everyday social cognition.

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