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Kulke L, Ertugrul S, Reyentanz E, Thomas V. Uncomfortable staring? Gaze to other people in social situations is inhibited in both infants and adults. Dev Sci 2024; 27:e13468. [PMID: 38135924 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13468] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2023] [Revised: 10/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/01/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023]
Abstract
People attract infants' and adults' gaze when presented on a computer screen. However, in live social situations, adults inhibit their gaze at strangers to avoid sending inappropriate social signals. Such inhibition of gaze has never been directly investigated in infants. The current preregistered study measured gaze and neural responses (EEG alpha power) to a confederate in a live social situation compared to a video of this confederate. Adults looked less at the live confederate than at the video of the confederate, although their neural responses suggest that they were overall equally attentive in both situations. Infants also looked less at the live confederate than at the video of the confederate, with similar neural response patterns. The gaze difference between live social and video situations increased with age. The study shows that young infants are already sensitive to social context and show decreased gaze to strangers in social situations. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: This study shows that infants and adults look more at a video of a stranger than at a stranger that is present live in a social situation. Neural responses suggest that adults are equally attentive in both live and video situations but inhibit their gaze at the stranger in live social situations. Infants show a similar pattern of shorter gaze at a stranger who is present in person than at a video of this stranger. The study shows that gaze in infants and adults may diverge from cognitive processes measured through EEG, highlighting the importance of combining behavioural and neural measures in natural interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- Developmental Psychology with Educational Psychology, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
- Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Sahura Ertugrul
- Developmental Psychology with Educational Psychology, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
- Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Emely Reyentanz
- Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Vanessa Thomas
- Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
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2
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Wu R, Leow K, Yu N, Rafter C, Rosenbaum K, F de C Hamilton A, White SJ. Evaluative contexts facilitate implicit mentalizing: relation to the broader autism phenotype and mental health. Sci Rep 2024; 14:4697. [PMID: 38409351 PMCID: PMC10897468 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-55075-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2023] [Accepted: 02/19/2024] [Indexed: 02/28/2024] Open
Abstract
One promising account for autism is implicit mentalizing difficulties. However, this account and even the existence of implicit mentalizing have been challenged because the replication results are mixed. Those unsuccessful replications may be due to the task contexts not being sufficiently evaluative. Therefore, the current study developed a more evaluative paradigm by implementing a prompt question. This was assessed in 60 non-autistic adults and compared with a non-prompt version. Additionally, parents of autistic children are thought to show a genetic liability to autistic traits and cognition and often report mental health problems, but the broader autism phenotype (BAP) is an under-researched area. Thus, we also aimed to compare 33 BAP and 26 non-BAP mothers on mentalizing abilities, autistic traits, compensation and mental health. Our results revealed that more evaluative contexts can facilitate implicit mentalizing in BAP and non-BAP populations, and thus improve task reliability and replicability. Surprisingly, BAP mothers showed better implicit mentalizing but worse mental health than non-BAP mothers, which indicates the heterogeneity in the broader autism phenotype and the need to promote BAP mothers' psychological resilience. The findings underscore the importance of contexts for implicit mentalizing and the need to profile mentalizing and mental health in BAP parents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruihan Wu
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AZ, UK.
| | - Karen Leow
- National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Nicole Yu
- National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Ciara Rafter
- Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, Manchester, UK
| | - Katia Rosenbaum
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AZ, UK
| | - Antonia F de C Hamilton
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AZ, UK
| | - Sarah J White
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AZ, UK.
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Rothmaler K, Grosse Wiesmann C. Evidence against implicit belief processing in a blindfold task. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0294136. [PMID: 37956182 PMCID: PMC10642834 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2023] [Accepted: 10/25/2023] [Indexed: 11/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Understanding what other people think is crucial to our everyday interactions. We seem to be affected by the perspective of others even in situations where it is irrelevant to us. This intrusion from others' perspectives has been referred to as altercentric bias and has been suggested to reflect implicit belief processing. There is an ongoing debate about how robust such altercentric effects are and whether they indeed reflect true mentalizing or result from simpler, domain-general processes. As a critical test for true mentalizing, the blindfold manipulation has been proposed. That is, participants are familiarized with a blindfold that is either transparent or opaque. When they then observe a person wearing this blindfold, they can only infer what this person can or cannot see based on their knowledge of the blindfold's transparency. Here, we used this blindfold manipulation to test whether participants' reaction times in detecting an object depended on the agent's belief about the object's location, itself manipulated with a blindfold. As a second task, we asked participants to detect where the agent was going to look for the object. Across two experiments with a large participant pool (N = 234) and different settings (online/lab), we found evidence against altercentric biases in participants' response times in detecting the object. We did, however, replicate a well-documented reality congruency effect. When asked to detect the agent's action, in turn, participants were biased by their own knowledge of where the object should be, in line with egocentric biases previously found in false belief reasoning. These findings suggests that altercentric biases do not reflect belief processing but lower-level processes, or alternatively, that implicit belief processing does not occur when the belief needs to be inferred from one's own experience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katrin Rothmaler
- Minerva Fast Track Research Group Milestones of Early Cognitive Development, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Saxony, Germany
- Humboldt Research Group, Faculty of Education, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Saxony, Germany
| | - Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann
- Minerva Fast Track Research Group Milestones of Early Cognitive Development, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Saxony, Germany
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Egawa J, Kawasaki K, Hayashi T, Akikawa R, Someya T, Hasegawa I. Theory of mind tested by implicit false belief: a simple and full-fledged mental state attribution. FEBS J 2022; 289:7343-7358. [PMID: 34914205 PMCID: PMC10078721 DOI: 10.1111/febs.16322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2020] [Revised: 10/15/2021] [Accepted: 12/14/2021] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
About 40 years have passed since 'theory of mind (ToM)' research started. The false-belief test is used as a litmus test for ToM ability. The implicit false-belief test has renewed views of ToM in several disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. Many important questions have been considered via the paradigm of implicit false belief. We recently addressed the phylogenetic and physiological aspects of ToM using a version of this paradigm combined with the chemogenetic technique on Old World monkeys. We sought to create animal models for autism that exhibit behavioral phenotypes similar to human symptoms. The simultaneous manipulation of neural circuits and assessments of changes in phenotypes can help identify the causal neural substrate of ToM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jun Egawa
- Department of Psychiatry, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Japan
| | - Keisuke Kawasaki
- Department of Physiology, Niigata University School of Medicine, Japan
| | - Taketsugu Hayashi
- Department of Psychiatry, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Japan
| | - Ryota Akikawa
- Department of Physiology, Niigata University School of Medicine, Japan
| | - Toshiyuki Someya
- Department of Psychiatry, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Japan
| | - Isao Hasegawa
- Department of Physiology, Niigata University School of Medicine, Japan
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Morgan EJ, Carroll DJ, Chow CKC, Freeth M. The Effect of Social Presence on Mentalizing Behavior. Cogn Sci 2022; 46:e13126. [PMID: 35411971 PMCID: PMC9287020 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13126] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2021] [Revised: 02/22/2022] [Accepted: 02/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Our behavior is frequently influenced by those around us. However, the majority of social cognition research is conducted using socially isolated paradigms, without the presence of real people (i.e., without a "social presence"). The current study aimed to test the influence of social presence upon a measure of mentalizing behavior in adults. Study 1 used a first-order theory of mind task; and study 2 used a second-order theory of mind task. Both studies included two conditions: live, where the task protagonists were physically present acting out the task, or recorded, where the same task protagonists demonstrated the task in a video recording. In both experiments, participants were affected by the social presence and demonstrated significantly different patterns of behavior in response to the presence of real people. This study, therefore, highlights the critical importance of understanding the effect of a social presence in mentalizing research, and suggests that the inclusion of a social presence needs to be given strong consideration across social cognition paradigms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emma J Morgan
- Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield
| | | | | | - Megan Freeth
- Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield
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Csulak T, Hajnal A, Kiss S, Dembrovszky F, Varjú-Solymár M, Sipos Z, Kovács MA, Herold M, Varga E, Hegyi P, Tényi T, Herold R. Implicit Mentalizing in Patients With Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Front Psychol 2022; 13:790494. [PMID: 35185724 PMCID: PMC8847732 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.790494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2021] [Accepted: 01/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Mentalizing is a key aspect of social cognition. Several researchers assume that mentalization has two systems, an explicit one (conscious, relatively slow, flexible, verbal, inferential) and an implicit one (unconscious, automatic, fast, non-verbal, intuitive). In schizophrenia, several studies have confirmed the deficit of explicit mentalizing, but little data are available on non-explicit mentalizing. However, increasing research activity can be detected recently in implicit mentalizing. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to summarize the existing results of implicit mentalizing in schizophrenia. METHODS A systematic search was performed in four major databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Web of Science. Eleven publications were selected. Five studies were found to be eligible for quantitative synthesis, and 9 studies were included in qualitative synthesis. RESULTS The meta-analysis revealed significantly lower accuracy, slower reaction time during implicit mentalizing in patients with schizophrenia. The systematic review found different brain activation pattern, further alterations in visual scanning, cue fixation, face looking time, and difficulties in perspective taking. DISCUSSION Overall, in addition to the deficit of explicit mentalization, implicit mentalization performance is also affected in schizophrenia, if not to the same extent. It seems likely that some elements of implicit mentalization might be relatively unaffected (e.g., detection of intentionality), but the effectiveness is limited by certain neurocognitive deficits. These alterations in implicit mentalizing can also have potential therapeutic consequences.Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier: CRD42021231312.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timea Csulak
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary.,Doctoral School of Clinical Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - András Hajnal
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Szabolcs Kiss
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Fanni Dembrovszky
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Margit Varjú-Solymár
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Zoltán Sipos
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Márton Aron Kovács
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary.,Doctoral School of Clinical Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Márton Herold
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary.,Doctoral School of Clinical Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Eszter Varga
- Department of Pediatrics, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Péter Hegyi
- Medical School, Institute for Translational Medicine, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Tamás Tényi
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
| | - Róbert Herold
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
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Ghrear S, Baimel A, Haddock T, Birch SAJ. Are the classic false belief tasks cursed? Young children are just as likely as older children to pass a false belief task when they are not required to overcome the curse of knowledge. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0244141. [PMID: 33606742 PMCID: PMC7894954 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244141] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2020] [Accepted: 12/04/2020] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The question of when children understand that others have minds that can represent or misrepresent reality (i.e., possess a 'Theory of Mind') is hotly debated. This understanding plays a fundamental role in social interaction (e.g., interpreting human behavior, communicating, empathizing). Most research on this topic has relied on false belief tasks such as the 'Sally-Anne Task', because researchers have argued that it is the strongest litmus test examining one's understanding that the mind can misrepresent reality. Unfortunately, in addition to a variety of other cognitive demands this widely used measure also unnecessarily involves overcoming a bias that is especially pronounced in young children-the 'curse of knowledge' (the tendency to be biased by one's knowledge when considering less-informed perspectives). Three- to 6-year-old's (n = 230) false belief reasoning was examined across tasks that either did, or did not, require overcoming the curse of knowledge, revealing that when the curse of knowledge was removed three-year-olds were significantly better at inferring false beliefs, and as accurate as five- and six-year-olds. These findings reveal that the classic task is not specifically measuring false belief understanding. Instead, previously observed developmental changes in children's performance could be attributed to the ability to overcome the curse of knowledge. Similarly, previously observed relationships between individual differences in false belief reasoning and a variety of social outcomes could instead be the result of individual differences in the ability to overcome the curse of knowledge, highlighting the need to re-evaluate how best to interpret large bodies of research on false belief reasoning and social-emotional functioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Siba Ghrear
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- * E-mail:
| | - Adam Baimel
- Department of Psychology, Health and Professional Development, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Taeh Haddock
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Susan A. J. Birch
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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Kulke L, Hinrichs MAB. Implicit Theory of Mind under realistic social circumstances measured with mobile eye-tracking. Sci Rep 2021; 11:1215. [PMID: 33441890 PMCID: PMC7806733 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-80614-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2019] [Accepted: 12/21/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Recently, there has been a debate whether implicit Theory of Mind can be reliably measured using anticipatory looking tasks. Previous anticipatory looking paradigms used video stimuli to measure implicit Theory of Mind; however, numerous replications of these paradigms were unsuccessful. This lack of replications may be due to video stimuli not being sufficiently engaging. As Theory of Mind is an inherently social phenomenon, robust evidence might only be observed in a real social situation. Therefore, the current preregistered study aimed to test anticipatory looking with real-life social stimuli. A mobile eye-tracker was used to measure gaze patterns indicative of Theory of Mind while participants observed a real-life interaction of an experimenter and a confederate. The realistic scenario did not provide clear evidence for implicit Theory of Mind. Furthermore, anticipatory looking behavior did not reliably occur during familiarization trials, in line with previous research. However, looking patterns were slightly more in line with belief tracking than in some more controlled studies using video stimuli. In general, implicit Theory of Mind was not reliably reflected in anticipatory looking patterns even if they were measured in realistic social situations. This questions the suitability of anticipatory looking measures for implicit Theory of Mind.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- grid.7450.60000 0001 2364 4210Department of Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology, Georg-August University Göttingen, Goßlerstr. 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany ,grid.5330.50000 0001 2107 3311Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Max Andreas Bosse Hinrichs
- grid.7450.60000 0001 2364 4210Department of Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology, Georg-August University Göttingen, Goßlerstr. 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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Abstract
Research on the capacity to understand others' minds has tended to focus on representations of beliefs, which are widely taken to be among the most central and basic theory of mind representations. Representations of knowledge, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention and have often been understood as depending on prior representations of belief. After all, how could one represent someone as knowing something if one doesn't even represent them as believing it? Drawing on a wide range of methods across cognitive science, we ask whether belief or knowledge is the more basic kind of representation. The evidence indicates that non-human primates attribute knowledge but not belief, that knowledge representations arise earlier in human development than belief representations, that the capacity to represent knowledge may remain intact in patient populations even when belief representation is disrupted, that knowledge (but not belief) attributions are likely automatic, and that explicit knowledge attributions are made more quickly than equivalent belief attributions. Critically, the theory of mind representations uncovered by these various methods exhibit a set of signature features clearly indicative of knowledge: they are not modality-specific, they are factive, they are not just true belief, and they allow for representations of egocentric ignorance. We argue that these signature features elucidate the primary function of knowledge representation: facilitating learning from others about the external world. This suggests a new way of understanding theory of mind-one that is focused on understanding others' minds in relation to the actual world, rather than independent from it.
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Horschler DJ, MacLean EL, Santos LR. Do Non-Human Primates Really Represent Others' Beliefs? Trends Cogn Sci 2020; 24:594-605. [PMID: 32593501 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.05.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2020] [Revised: 04/28/2020] [Accepted: 05/21/2020] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Over two decades of research have produced compelling evidence that non-human primates understand some psychological states in other individuals but are unable to represent others' beliefs. Recently, three studies employing anticipatory looking (AL) paradigms reported that non-human primates do show hints of implicitly understanding the beliefs of others. However, measures of AL have been increasingly scrutinized in the human literature owing to extensive replication problems. We argue that new reports of belief representation in non-human primates using AL should be interpreted cautiously because of methodological and theoretical challenges paralleling trends in the human literature. We explore how future work can address these challenges, and conclude by identifying new evolutionary questions raised by the prospect that non-human primates implicitly represent others' beliefs without an explicit belief representation system that guides fitness-relevant behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel J Horschler
- School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; Cognitive Science Program, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA.
| | - Evan L MacLean
- School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; Cognitive Science Program, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
| | - Laurie R Santos
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
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