TY - JOUR
T1 - Seeing the World From Others’ Perspective
T2 - 14-Month-Olds Show Altercentric Modulation Effects by Others’ Beliefs
AU - Kampis, Dora
AU - Kovács, Ágnes Melinda
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Published.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Humans have a propensity to readily adopt others’ perspective, which often influences their behavior even when it seemingly should not. This altercentric influence has been widely studied in adults, yet we lack an understanding of its ontogenetic origins. The current studies investigated whether 14-month-olds’ search in a box for potential objects is modulated by another person’s belief about the box’s content. We varied the person’s potential belief such that in her presence/absence an object was removed, added, or exchanged for another, leading to her true/false belief about the object’s presence (Experiment 1, n = 96); or transformed into another object, leading to her true/false belief about the object’s identity (i.e., the objects represented under a specific aspect, Experiment 2, n = 32). Infants searched longer if the other person believed that an object remained in the box, showing an altercentric influence early in development. These results suggest that infants spontaneously represent others’ beliefs involving multiple objects and raise the possibility that infants can appreciate that others encode the world under a unique aspect.
AB - Humans have a propensity to readily adopt others’ perspective, which often influences their behavior even when it seemingly should not. This altercentric influence has been widely studied in adults, yet we lack an understanding of its ontogenetic origins. The current studies investigated whether 14-month-olds’ search in a box for potential objects is modulated by another person’s belief about the box’s content. We varied the person’s potential belief such that in her presence/absence an object was removed, added, or exchanged for another, leading to her true/false belief about the object’s presence (Experiment 1, n = 96); or transformed into another object, leading to her true/false belief about the object’s identity (i.e., the objects represented under a specific aspect, Experiment 2, n = 32). Infants searched longer if the other person believed that an object remained in the box, showing an altercentric influence early in development. These results suggest that infants spontaneously represent others’ beliefs involving multiple objects and raise the possibility that infants can appreciate that others encode the world under a unique aspect.
KW - altercentrism
KW - aspectuality
KW - infants
KW - manual search
KW - object representation
KW - theory of mind
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85160359162&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1162/opmi_a_00050
DO - 10.1162/opmi_a_00050
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85160359162
SN - 2470-2986
VL - 5
SP - 189
EP - 207
JO - Open Mind
JF - Open Mind
ER -