Visibly constraining an agent modulates observers’ automatic false-belief tracking

Abstract

our motor system can generate representations which carry information about the goals of another agent's actions. However, it is not known whether motor representations play a deeper role in social understanding, and, in particular, whether they enable tracking others' beliefs. Here we show that, for adult observers, reliably manifesting an ability to track another's false belief critically depends on representing the agent's potential actions motorically. one signature of motor representations is that they can be disrupted by constraints on an observed agent's action capacities. We therefore used a 'mummification' technique to manipulate whether the agent in a visual ball-detection task was free to act or whether he was visibly constrained from acting. Adults' reaction times reliably reflected the agent's beliefs only when the agent was free to act on the ball and not when the agent was visibly constrained from acting. furthermore, it was the agent's constrained action capabilities, rather than any perceptual novelty, that determined whether adult observers' reaction times reliably reflected the agent's beliefs. These findings signal that our motor system may underpin more of social cognition than previously imagined, and, in particular, that motor representations may underpin automatic false-belief tracking.

Movement as a window to the mind: grasping adults’ perception and understanding of others’ goal-directed movements

“…The current findings raise significant problems for Ambrosini et al at a task analysis level, but also present theoretical worries for other researchers (e.g., Butterfill, 2020;Low et al, 2020;Zani et al, 2020), who assume that the evidence on the action observation paradigm reliably showcases motor representations playing a role in adults' efficient mindreading of others' goal-directed actions (at the very least). Further, what does this mean for the theoretical argument used to explain the original study's findings, namely, the direct matching hypothesis?…”

“…This seems a reasonable solution to the developmental paradox. Recently, there have even been suggestions that System 1 may be partly grounded in the motor system (Low, Edwards, & Butterfill, 2020;Zani, Butterfill, & Low, 2020). This will be elaborated upon further in section 4.4.…”

“…There is little research documenting whether motor representations are accessed or functionally relevant for tracking social action (e.g., for processing others' actions that are based on false belief). A few recent studies, however, have made strides on those fronts (e.g., Edwards & Low, 2017;Low et al, 2020;Zani, et al, 2020), going so far as to suggest that certain forms of mindreading may even be motorically grounded; let us turn to look at those findings more closely.…”

“…Most problematically, in positing that motor representations can weigh in on belief-relevant situations, Low et al (2020) take for granted that motor representations reliably accommodate goal ascription during action observation. The conjecture that motor representations "underpin the primary ways in which human beings engage in social cognition to play a role in the tracking of beliefs which specify someone's reasons for action" (p. 8) may be built on a house of cards if it turns out that researchers cannot take for granted evidence of motor representations enabling tracking of others' goals during action observation.…”

“…Butterfill, Low and their colleagues' (e.g., Butterfill & Apperly, 2016;Butterfill & Sinigaglia, 2012;Low, et al, 2020) view that it is only efficient processing of others' mental states-tracked in terms of agent-object relations-that could interface with motor representations. For instance, (1) tracking the outcome to which an action is directed rather than representing intention as such, (2) tracking preference rather than representing desire as such, or (3) tracking registration rather than representing belief as such.…”