Perspective Taking: building a neurocognitive framework for integrating the “social” and the “spatial”

Editorial

11 June 2014

Perspective taking: building a neurocognitive framework for integrating the “social” and the “spatial”

Antonia F. de C. Hamilton

Klaus Kessler

and

Sarah H. Creem-Regehr

10,304 views

23 citations

Editors

Klaus Kessler

University College Dublin

Sarah H Creem-Regehr

The University of Utah

Antonia Hamilton

University College London

Impact

(A) A schematic illustration of the two-cannon task reported by Tamborello et al. (2012). In the experiment, participants (“observers”) were sitting in front of a computer (the observer’s line of sight was perpendicular to the plane of the computer screen). (B) Actual task displays in the experiment. At the beginning of each trial, two cannons (one red and one blue) and multiple pellets (in either red or blue) were presented together on the computer screen. After a one-second pause, a randomly selected pellet would flash as the target. The participants’ task was to use the arrow keys to rotate the cannon in the same color of the target toward the target as quickly as possible. The cannons’ orientations and the ratio between the number of red and blue pellets were varied across trials. The angles between two cannons were either “conflict-absent” (zero degree) or “conflict-present” (90 or 180°).

Hypothesis and Theory

14 February 2014

Insight into others’ minds: spatio-temporal representations by intrinsic frame of reference

Yanlong Sun

and

Hongbin Wang

5,342 views

5 citations

Detail of the experimental procedure (a top-down view). (A) mental rotation (MR), (B) level 2 of visual perspective taking (VPT2), (C) self-motion (SM), and (D) self-motion-imagery (SMI). In all experimental conditions, the experimenter began by confirming that the participants were attending to the orientation of the toy. After covering the bucket and completing the experimental manipulation, the experimenter asked the participants to point to one of the pictures on the response sheet, shown at the right side of the figure.

Original Research

11 December 2013

Developmental changes in mental rotation ability and visual perspective-taking in children and adults with Williams syndrome

Masahiro Hirai

, 4 more and

Miho Nakamura

6,459 views

13 citations

Illustration of the task design: sequences of three pictures showing painful or nonpainful scenarios were displayed in a first (1PP arm at 0°–45° angle; right-hand side of the figure) or third person visual perspective (3PP: arm at ~180° angle; left-hand side of the figure). Visual stimuli were presented in sequence with variable timing (see text) in order to induce a pseudo-dynamic effect. The type of visual perspective was perceptible from the first picture on, and the painful or nonpainful outcome appeared only in the third picture. The pain pictures were followed by a rating scale to remind participants to provide their response aurally.

Original Research

09 December 2013

The influence of visual perspective on the somatosensory steady-state response during pain observation

Dora L. Canizales

, 3 more and

Philip L. Jackson

4,568 views

19 citations

Original Research

02 December 2013

How culture influences perspective taking: differences in correction, not integration

Shali Wu

, 2 more and

Boaz Keysar

Individuals from East Asian (Chinese) backgrounds have been shown to exhibit greater sensitivity to a speaker’s perspective than Western (U.S.) participants when resolving referentially ambiguous expressions. We show that this cultural difference does not reflect better integration of social information during language processing, but rather is the result of differential correction: in the earliest moments of referential processing, Chinese participants showed equivalent egocentric interference to Westerners, but managed to suppress the interference earlier and more effectively. A time-series analysis of visual-world eye-tracking data found that the two cultural groups diverged extremely late in processing, between 600 and 1400 ms after the onset of egocentric interference. We suggest that the early moments of referential processing reflect the operation of a universal stratum of processing that provides rapid ambiguity resolution at the cost of accuracy and flexibility. Late components, in contrast, reflect the mapping of outputs from referential processes to decision-making and action planning systems, allowing for a flexibility in responding that is molded by culturally specific demands.

43,508 views

73 citations

Hypothesis and Theory

26 November 2013

Shared action spaces: a basis function framework for social re-calibration of sensorimotor representations supporting joint action

Giovanni Pezzulo

, 2 more and

Klaus Kessler

7,203 views

36 citations

Original Research

25 November 2013

Does that look heavy to you? Perceived weight judgment in lifting actions in younger and older adults

Corrina Maguinness

, 2 more and

Rose Anne Kenny

5,875 views

18 citations

Review

19 November 2013

The economy of social resources and its influence on spatial perceptions

Elizabeth B. Gross

and

Dennis Proffitt

6,077 views

22 citations

Original Research

05 November 2013

The use of embodied self-rotation for visual and spatial perspective-taking

Andrew Surtees

, 1 more and

Dana Samson

Previous research has shown that calculating if something is to someone’s left or right involves a simulative process recruiting representations of our own body in imagining ourselves in the position of the other person (Kessler and Rutherford, 2010). We compared left and right judgements from another’s spatial position (spatial perspective judgements) to judgements of how a numeral appeared from another’s point of view (visual perspective judgements). Experiment 1 confirmed that these visual and spatial perspective judgements involved a process of rotation as they became more difficult with angular disparity between the self and other. There was evidence of some difference between the two, but both showed a linear pattern. Experiment 2 went a step further in showing that these judgements used embodied self rotations, as their difficulty was also dependent on the current position of the self within the world. This effect was significantly stronger in spatial perspective-taking, but was present in both cases. We conclude that embodied self-rotations, through which we actively imagine ourselves assuming someone else’s position in the world can subserve not only reasoning about where objects are in relation to someone else but also how the objects in their environment appear to them.

9,949 views

100 citations

Original Research

01 November 2013

Common brain areas engaged in false belief reasoning and visual perspective taking: a meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies

Matthias Schurz

, 2 more and

Josef Perner

We performed a quantitative meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies to identify brain areas which are commonly engaged in social and visuo-spatial perspective taking. Specifically, we compared brain activation for visual-perspective taking to activation for false belief reasoning, which requires awareness of perspective to understand someone's mistaken belief about the world which contrasts with reality. In support of a previous account by Perner and Leekam (2008), our meta-analytic conjunction analysis found common activation for false belief reasoning and visual perspective taking in the left but not the right dorsal temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). This fits with the idea that the left dorsal TPJ is responsible for representing different perspectives in a domain-general fashion. Moreover, our conjunction analysis found activation in the precuneus and the left middle occipital gyrus close to the putative Extrastriate Body Area (EBA). The precuneus is linked to mental-imagery which may aid in the construction of a different perspective. The EBA may be engaged due to imagined body-transformations when another's viewpoint is adopted.

20,423 views

170 citations