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Spontaneous Perspective Taking in Humans?
Geoff G Cole1, Mark A Atkinson2, Antonia D C D'Souza1
1Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Vision (Basel, Switzerland)
|November 20, 2019
Summary
This study challenges the idea that people automatically consider others' viewpoints. Experiments using visual cognition tasks found no evidence supporting spontaneous perspective-taking or attentional shifts based on an observer's gaze.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Cognition
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Social cognition research suggests humans spontaneously compute others' viewpoints.
- Previous studies indicate response times are affected by whether a human agent can see task-relevant stimuli.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test the spontaneous perspective-taking theory within established visual cognition paradigms.
- To re-evaluate the role of spontaneous perspective-taking in gaze cueing effects.
- To investigate the attentional shift hypothesis as an alternative explanation for prior findings.
Main Methods:
- Incorporated the spontaneous perspective-taking theory into the flanker effect and Simon effect paradigms.
- Reassessed the influence of a gazing agent's visibility of stimuli on the gaze cueing effect.
- Examined whether attentional shifts explained previous results attributed to perspective-taking.
Main Results:
- The Simon effect and other visual cognition phenomena were not modulated by an agent's ability to see critical stimuli.
- No evidence was found supporting the claim that attentional shifts explained prior perspective-taking results.
- Gaze cueing effects were not influenced by the agent's visual access to task-relevant information.
Conclusions:
- The findings challenge the spontaneous perspective-taking theory in social cognition.
- The data do not support the attentional shift hypothesis as an explanation for observed effects.
- Current evidence questions the automatic computation of others' viewpoints in visual cognition tasks.
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