How do you know that? Automatic belief inferences in passing conversation

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Philosophy of Mind

Background:

• Debate exists on whether belief inference is automatic or requires cognitive resources.
• Laboratory studies suggest belief inference is cognitively costly and controlled.
• Everyday conversation may involve pervasive and potentially automatic belief reasoning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if belief reasoning during everyday conversation can be automatic.
• To test the hypothesis that social interaction relies on automatic belief inference.

Main Methods:

• Two pre-registered self-paced reading experiments were conducted.
• Participants read sentences describing social interactions.
• Reaction times were measured to assess cognitive load.

Main Results:

• Participants showed slower reading times when a stranger made a comment that violated common-ground expectations.
• Control conditions (stranger commenting on own ulcer, friend making comments) did not elicit the same slowdown.
• This suggests a cognitive cost associated with inferring a stranger's beliefs.

Conclusions:

• Belief reasoning in conversation, particularly with strangers, can be automatic.
• Theory of Mind models should incorporate automatic belief inference in social interactions.
• Everyday social interaction relies heavily on the ability to infer others' mental states.