How Cultural Models of Mind Affect Actor Director Task Performance

<p>The actor director task (DT) has been used extensively to assess differences in perspective taking ability. Previous studies have found that individuals from collectivist cultures outperform those from individualist cultures in the DT. The current study uses an online form of the DT to assess individuals from European, New Zealand Pasifika and Māori cultural groups. Pasifika and Māori cultures tend to be categorised as collectivist, but have theory of mind norms that differ from previously assessed collectivist cultures. It is hypothesised that these norms will advantage Pasifika in the DT but not Māori. No significant differences are found in performance on the DT across all three cultural groups. All three groups replicated general performance on the DT in previous studies.</p>

How Cultural Models of Mind Affect Actor Director Task Performance

<p>The actor director task (DT) has been used extensively to assess differences in perspective taking ability. Previous studies have found that individuals from collectivist cultures outperform those from individualist cultures in the DT. The current study uses an online form of the DT to assess individuals from European, New Zealand Pasifika and Māori cultural groups. Pasifika and Māori cultures tend to be categorised as collectivist, but have theory of mind norms that differ from previously assessed collectivist cultures. It is hypothesised that these norms will advantage Pasifika in the DT but not Māori. No significant differences are found in performance on the DT across all three cultural groups. All three groups replicated general performance on the DT in previous studies.</p>

Training self-other distinction facilitates perspective taking in young children

Adults and children sometimes commit ‘egocentric errors’, failing to ignore their own perspective, when interpreting others’ communication. Training imitation-inhibition reduces these errors in adults, facilitating perspective-taking. This study tested whether imitation-inhibition training may also facilitate perspective-taking in 3-6-year-olds, an age where the egocentric perspective may be particularly influential. Children participated in a 10-minute imitation-inhibition, imitation, or non-social-inhibition training (white, n=25 per condition, 33 female), and subsequently the communicative-perspective-taking Director task. Training had a significant effect (F(2, 71)= 3.268, p= .044, η2= .084): on critical trials the imitation-inhibition group selected the correct object more often than the imitation and non-social-inhibition training groups. The imitation-inhibition training thus specifically enhanced the perspective-taking process, indicating that perspective-taking from childhood onwards involves managing self-other representations.

EXPRESS: Adult Bilinguals Outperform Monolinguals in Theory of Mind

Theory of mind (ToM) is an essential ability for social competence and communication, and it is necessary for understanding behaviors that differ from our own (Premack and Woodruff, 1978). Research on bilingual children has reported that 3 and 4-year-old bilinguals outperform monolinguals in ToM tasks. Research suggests that adult bilinguals also might outperform monolinguals (Rubio-Fernandez and Glucksberg, 2012), nevertheless, this effect has yet to be established. Here, we tested bilingual and monolingual adults on the director task (Dumontheil, Apperly, & Blakemore, 2010; Keysar, Lin, & Bar, 2003). Results showed that bilingual adults outperformed monolinguals in response to perspective-dependent trials of the director task, but not in response to control trials. This suggests that bilingualism is associated with individuals’ ability to take into account the perspective of another person. In addition, the number of cultures that participants were exposed to, regardless of whether the participant was bilingual or not, was also associated with ToM performance. Overall, the findings suggest that linguistic and cultural experience have an impact on ToM.

Adolescents Display Distinct Self-Referential Biases in Memory and Perspective Taking

Self-referential processing, the appraisal of how information relates to oneself, and perspective taking, the ability to take another person’s point of view, undergo continued development throughout adolescence. Research suggests a link between these processes in adults, but little is known about their relationship in adolescents. The current study assessed age-related differences in, and relationship between, self-referential processing and perspective taking in adolescence and early adulthood. Participants (N = 97) aged 11-35 years performed a self-referential memory task in which they rated how well a series of self-related adjectives (e.g., “joyful”) described themselves and how well a series of town-related adjectives (e.g., “touristy”) described London. During a subsequent surprise memory task, younger participants displayed increased memory accuracy and confidence for self-related adjectives, compared to town-related adjectives, and a memory bias that disadvantaged recognising town-related adjectives, compared to self-related adjectives. This heightened sensitivity to self-related information diminished with age: older participants showed no differences in memory accuracy, confidence ratings and memory bias between self- and town-related adjectives. Participants also completed the Director task, a measure of perspective taking. Results showed continued improvement in task performance from adolescence to adulthood. Across all ages, there was no significant relationship between the memory domain of self-referential processing and perspective taking. Overall, our findings show that adolescents display heightened self-referential biases in memory and perspective taking, but we found no evidence that these two processes are related.

Taking the perspectives of many people: Humanization matters

In a busy space, people encounter many other people with different viewpoints, but classic studies of perspective-taking examine only one agent at a time. This paper explores the issue of selectivity in visual perspective-taking (VPT) when different people are available to interact with. We consider the hypothesis that humanization impacts on VPT in four studies using virtual reality methods. Experiments 1 and 2 use the director task to show that for more humanized agents (an in-group member or a virtual human agent), participants were more likely to use VPT to achieve lower error rate. Experiments 3 and 4 used a two-agent social mental rotation task to show that participants are faster and more accurate to recognize items which are oriented towards a more humanized agent (an in-group member or a naturally moving agent). All results support the claim that humanization alters the propensity to engage in VPT in rich social contexts.

Adult Bilinguals Outperform Monolinguals in Theory of Mind

Theory of mind (ToM) is an essential ability for social competence and communication, and it is necessary for understanding behaviors that differ from our own (Premack and Woodruff, 1978). Research on bilingual children has reported that 3 and 4-year-old bilinguals outperform monolinguals in ToM tasks. While research on ToM has traditionally focused on children’s performance, adult bilinguals’ ToM abilities are largely unexplored. Research suggests that adult bilinguals also might outperform monolinguals (Rubio-Fernandez and Glucksberg, 2012), nevertheless, this difference has yet to be established using a more robust methodology. Here, we tested bilingual and monolingual adults on the director task (Dumontheil, Apperly, &amp; Blakemore, 2010). Results showed that bilingual adults outperformed monolinguals in response to perspective-dependent trials of the director task, but not in response to control trials. This suggests that bilingualism is associated with individuals’ ability to take into account the perspective of another person. In addition, the number of cultures that participants were exposed to, regardless of bilingualism, was also associated with ToM performance. Overall, the findings suggest that linguistic and cultural experience have an impact on ToM.

Social Class Predicts Emotion Perception and Perspective-Taking Performance in Adults

“Theory of Mind” (ToM; people’s ability to infer and use information about others’ mental states) varies across cultures. In four studies ( N = 881), including two preregistered replications, we show that social class predicts performance on ToM tasks. In Studies 1A and 1B, we provide new evidence for a relationship between social class and emotion perception: Higher-class individuals performed more poorly than their lower-class counterparts on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, which has participants infer the emotional states of targets from images of their eyes. In Studies 2A and 2B, we provide the first evidence that social class predicts visual perspective taking: Higher-class individuals made more errors than lower-class individuals in the Director Task, which requires participants to assume the visual perspective of another person. Potential mechanisms linking social class to performance in different ToM domains, as well as implications for deficiency-centered perspectives on low social class, are discussed.

Taking the perspectives of many people: humanization matters

In a busy space, people encounter many other people with different viewpoints, but classic studies of VPT examine only one agent at a time. This paper explores the issue of selectivity in VPT when different people are available to interact with. We consider the hypothesis that humanisation impacts on VPT in four studies using virtual reality methods. Experiment 1 &amp; 2 use the Director Task to show that for more humanised agents (an in-group member or a virtual human agent), participants were more likely to use VPT to achieve lower error rate. Experiment 3 &amp; 4 used a two-agent social mental rotation task to show that participants are faster and more accurate to recognise items which are oriented towards a more humanised agent (an in-group member or a naturally-moving agent). All results support the claim that humanisation alters the propensity to engage in VPT in rich social contexts.