Abstract
<p><b>Calculating others’ visual perspective automatically is a pivotal ability in human’s social communications. In the dot-perspective task, the ability is shown as a consistency effect: adults respond more slowly to judge the number of discs that they can see when a computer-generated avatar sees fewer discs. The implicit mentalising account attributes the effect to relatively automatic tracking of others’ visual perspectives. However, the submentalising account attributes the effect to domain-general attentional orienting. Accordingly, three studies were conducted to elucidate the ongoing implicit mentalising vs. submentalising debate.</b></p> <p>Study 1 (comprising Experiments 1 and 2) replicated the consistency effect either when real-human-face or spatial layout of discs was considered. Study 2 (comprising of Experiments 3 and 4) dissociated two accounts by manipulating real human’s facial cues. In Experiment 3, using a new visual access manipulation (i.e., a black rectangle placed on an agent’s eyes for rendering an invisible condition), a consistency effect was induced for eyes-opened but not eyes-covered faces with head direction, suggesting implicit mentalising. Experiment 4 firstly compared implicit mentalising (via consistency effect in the dot-perspective task) with attentional orienting (via a cue-validity effect in Posner task) when manipulating eye-head cues (head-front-gaze-averted versus head-turned-gaze-maintained). Neither effect was modulated by eye-head-related directional cue, but the cue-validity effect’s elicitation seemed to be related to the directional cue’s dynamic property. Overall, implicit mentalising as revealed in consistency effect cannot be purely reduced to attentional-orienting-related submentalising processes.</p> <p>Study 3 (comprising of Experiments 5 to 7) further clarified the debate by considering the agent’s different body cues. Experiment 5 extended the findings of Experiment 4 by generating a new eye-head-cue comparison (head-front-gaze-averted vs. head-turned-gaze-averted). Directional cue modulated cue-validity effect but not consistency effect, favouring Study 2’s conclusion. Experiment 6 adopted a new body-cue-manipulation (gaze-averted vs. finger-pointing). Both cue-validity and consistency effects were elicited for finger-pointing but not gaze-averted agents, supporting submentalising. Experiment 7 combined finger-pointing with visual access’s manipulation (eyes-opened vs. eyes-covered) on the dot-perspective task. Visual access did not modulate the consistency effect when finger-pointing was simultaneously displayed, supporting submentalising. Altogether, gaze aversion cues appear to play a dominant role in moderating implicit mentalising on the dot-perspective task, but the process may be interfered by the easily-discriminable finger-pointing cues via an attentional orienting mechanism.</p>
Highlights
The implicit mentalising account of Level-1 Visual Perspective Taking (L1VPT) originates from findings generated by Samson and colleagues’ (2010) dot-perspective task
In keeping with Samson et al.’s (2010) study, only data from matching trials were analysed; the researchers argued that on mismatching consistent trials, the number cue did not correspond to anyone’s perspective, making them easier to be processed than matching trials
A two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) for accuracy and response time in dotperspective task was conducted with “Directional cue”, “Consistency” (Consistent vs. Inconsistent) as within-subject factors, and accuracy and reaction time in the dot-perspective task were recorded as the key dependent variables
Summary
The implicit mentalising account of L1VPT originates from findings generated by Samson and colleagues’ (2010) dot-perspective task. Challenging the implicit mentalising account, other researchers suggest that domaingeneral attentional-orienting processes may just as well contribute to the consistency effect (e.g., Cole, Atkinson, D’Souza, & Smith, 2017; Langton, 2018; Santiesteban et al, 2014; Wilson et al, 2017). Rather than discussing the computation of the avatar’s eye gaze in terms of implicit mentalising about what the person sees or knows about her surroundings, this alternative – submentalising – account contends that directional cues (extracted from the avatar’s eyes, head or body) oriented attention to the certain locations in the dot-perspective task. Several researchers have attempted to test the submentalising account by manipulating the gazer’s mental state of seeing through the use of physical barriers (Cole et al, 2016; Conway et al, 2017; Furlanetto et al, 2016; Langton, 2018; Wilson et al, 2017)
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