Influences of Emotions, Sleep Deprivation, and Individual Differences in Visual Perspective Taking Support a Multidimensional Account of Mindreading

Bukowski, Henryk
(2019) International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS) 2019 — Location: Paris (7.March.2019)

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Butterfill and Apperly’s (2013) dual-process account proposes that humans efficiently or implicitly track others’ belief by using a minimal model of the mind that only represents registration as a belief-like state. This insight, anchored in terms of how humans’ online social cognition is limited and its restrictions are manifest in terms of signature limits, has revolutionized how scientists think about the architectural and processing characteristics of mindreading that is conducted efficiently. This symposium aims to delineate the representations underpinning efficient mindreading in less-trodden areas. Most data so far come from two sources: on the automaticity of efficient mindreading, and on tracking of false-beliefs about object identity in the numerical sense being the key signature limit of efficient mindreading. The present symposium will push the boundaries of the dual-process account in three ways: 1) we will cross the boundary of action kinematics by investigating interactions between the motor representations of action outcomes and efficient belief-tracking; 2) we will cross the boundary of perspective confrontation by looking at whether or not an agent’s location in space would be encoded when efficiently tracking how someone perceives and expects the world to be; and (3) we will cross the boundary of state-dependent effects by looking at how dynamic variables such as sleep-loss and emotion affect different mindreading processes. Are adults’ efficient (gaze) anticipations of another person’s reach-to-grasp actions underpinned by kinematic cues or by some interaction of motor information with facts about the environment as specified by the agent’s belief-like state? Dr. Jason Low will present new data showing that adults’ eye movements are initially modulated by motor representations whereupon observation of postural cues from the shaping of an agent’s hand (whole-hand prehension versus precision grip) activates observers’ corresponding motor plans, but that later modulation in action anticipation reflects higher-order interaction between motor processing and belief-tracking so that complementary eye-gaze responses are generated. Is under-specification of differences-in-perspective the elemental signature limit operating on efficient mindreading? Katheryn Edwards will present a visual-detection paradigm that weaves together belief-attribution and perspectivization, and discuss new data showing that adults’ reaction times in a perspective-tracking context is helpfully speeded by a bystander’s irrelevant belief when tracking two homogenous objects but not in a perspective-confrontation context when tracking a single heterogeneous object. How is mindreading influenced by emotional states, sleep deprivation, and intrinsic individual differences? Henryk Bukowski will present data indicating that how well adults infer what others see and what they see in social contexts can be better characterized than in terms of poor or good performance. Performance varied according to how self-centered individuals were and how well they manage to resolve conflicts between the self- and another person’s perspective. These findings call for a multidimensional assessment of mindreading performance. The symposium will be framed by a discussion by Dr Stephen Butterfill about the challenges and opportunities that the new data pose to the dual-process account of human mindreading, and which could be the most promising theoretical and research avenues to pursue in the future, followed by open discussion.
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Bukowski, H. (2019). Influences of Emotions, Sleep Deprivation, and Individual Differences in Visual Perspective Taking Support a Multidimensional Account of Mindreading. International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS) 2019, Paris. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/238789