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Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic

Data from a range of different experimental paradigms—in particular (but not only) the dot perspective task—have been interpreted as evidence that humans automatically track the perspective of other individuals. Results from other studies, however, have cast doubt on this interpretation, and some re...

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Autores principales: O’Grady, Cathleen, Scott-Phillips, Thom, Lavelle, Suilin, Smith, Kenny
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7551223/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32718242
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1747021820942479
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author O’Grady, Cathleen
Scott-Phillips, Thom
Lavelle, Suilin
Smith, Kenny
author_facet O’Grady, Cathleen
Scott-Phillips, Thom
Lavelle, Suilin
Smith, Kenny
author_sort O’Grady, Cathleen
collection PubMed
description Data from a range of different experimental paradigms—in particular (but not only) the dot perspective task—have been interpreted as evidence that humans automatically track the perspective of other individuals. Results from other studies, however, have cast doubt on this interpretation, and some researchers have suggested that phenomena that seem like perspective-taking might instead be the products of simpler behavioural rules. The issue remains unsettled in significant part because different schools of thought, with different theoretical perspectives, implement the experimental tasks in subtly different ways, making direct comparisons difficult. Here, we explore the possibility that subtle differences in experimental method explain otherwise irreconcilable findings in the literature. Across five experiments we show that the classic result in the dot perspective task is not automatic (it is not purely stimulus-driven), but nor is it exclusively the product of simple behavioural rules that do not involve mentalising. Instead, participants do compute the perspectives of other individuals rapidly, unconsciously, and involuntarily, but only when attentional systems prompt them to do so (just as, for instance, the visual system puts external objects into focus only as and when required). This finding prompts us to clearly distinguish spontaneity from automaticity. Spontaneous perspective-taking may be a computationally efficient means of navigating the social world.
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spelling pubmed-75512232020-10-30 Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic O’Grady, Cathleen Scott-Phillips, Thom Lavelle, Suilin Smith, Kenny Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) Original Articles Data from a range of different experimental paradigms—in particular (but not only) the dot perspective task—have been interpreted as evidence that humans automatically track the perspective of other individuals. Results from other studies, however, have cast doubt on this interpretation, and some researchers have suggested that phenomena that seem like perspective-taking might instead be the products of simpler behavioural rules. The issue remains unsettled in significant part because different schools of thought, with different theoretical perspectives, implement the experimental tasks in subtly different ways, making direct comparisons difficult. Here, we explore the possibility that subtle differences in experimental method explain otherwise irreconcilable findings in the literature. Across five experiments we show that the classic result in the dot perspective task is not automatic (it is not purely stimulus-driven), but nor is it exclusively the product of simple behavioural rules that do not involve mentalising. Instead, participants do compute the perspectives of other individuals rapidly, unconsciously, and involuntarily, but only when attentional systems prompt them to do so (just as, for instance, the visual system puts external objects into focus only as and when required). This finding prompts us to clearly distinguish spontaneity from automaticity. Spontaneous perspective-taking may be a computationally efficient means of navigating the social world. SAGE Publications 2020-07-28 2020-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7551223/ /pubmed/32718242 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1747021820942479 Text en © Experimental Psychology Society 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Articles
O’Grady, Cathleen
Scott-Phillips, Thom
Lavelle, Suilin
Smith, Kenny
Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic
title Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic
title_full Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic
title_fullStr Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic
title_full_unstemmed Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic
title_short Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic
title_sort perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7551223/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32718242
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1747021820942479
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