Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention

Abstract People are drawn to social, animate things more than inanimate objects. Previous research has also shown gaze following in humans, a process that has been linked to theory of mind (ToM). In three experiments, we investigated whether animacy and ToM are involved when making judgements about...

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Autores principales:	Jessica Dawson, Alan Kingstone, Tom Foulsham
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/893fcdb06a3a4365964cad50827e9665
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:893fcdb06a3a4365964cad50827e96652021-12-02T18:53:14ZTheory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention10.1038/s41598-021-96513-22045-2322https://doaj.org/article/893fcdb06a3a4365964cad50827e96652021-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96513-2https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract People are drawn to social, animate things more than inanimate objects. Previous research has also shown gaze following in humans, a process that has been linked to theory of mind (ToM). In three experiments, we investigated whether animacy and ToM are involved when making judgements about the location of a cursor in a scene. In Experiment 1, participants were told that this cursor represented the gaze of an observer and were asked to decide whether the observer was looking at a target object. This task is similar to that carried out by researchers manually coding eye-tracking data. The results showed that participants were biased to perceive the gaze cursor as directed towards animate objects (faces) compared to inanimate objects. In Experiments 2 and 3 we tested the role of ToM, by presenting the same scenes to new participants but now with the statement that the cursor was generated by a ‘random’ computer system or by a computer system designed to seek targets. The bias to report that the cursor was directed toward faces was abolished in Experiment 2, and minimised in Experiment 3. Together, the results indicate that people attach minds to the mere representation of an individual's gaze, and this attribution of mind influences what people believe an individual is looking at.Jessica DawsonAlan KingstoneTom FoulshamNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Jessica Dawson Alan Kingstone Tom Foulsham Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention
description	Abstract People are drawn to social, animate things more than inanimate objects. Previous research has also shown gaze following in humans, a process that has been linked to theory of mind (ToM). In three experiments, we investigated whether animacy and ToM are involved when making judgements about the location of a cursor in a scene. In Experiment 1, participants were told that this cursor represented the gaze of an observer and were asked to decide whether the observer was looking at a target object. This task is similar to that carried out by researchers manually coding eye-tracking data. The results showed that participants were biased to perceive the gaze cursor as directed towards animate objects (faces) compared to inanimate objects. In Experiments 2 and 3 we tested the role of ToM, by presenting the same scenes to new participants but now with the statement that the cursor was generated by a ‘random’ computer system or by a computer system designed to seek targets. The bias to report that the cursor was directed toward faces was abolished in Experiment 2, and minimised in Experiment 3. Together, the results indicate that people attach minds to the mere representation of an individual's gaze, and this attribution of mind influences what people believe an individual is looking at.
format	article
author	Jessica Dawson Alan Kingstone Tom Foulsham
author_facet	Jessica Dawson Alan Kingstone Tom Foulsham
author_sort	Jessica Dawson
title	Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention
title_short	Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention
title_full	Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention
title_fullStr	Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention
title_full_unstemmed	Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention
title_sort	theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/893fcdb06a3a4365964cad50827e9665
work_keys_str_mv	AT jessicadawson theoryofmindaffectstheinterpretationofanotherpersonsfocusofattention AT alankingstone theoryofmindaffectstheinterpretationofanotherpersonsfocusofattention AT tomfoulsham theoryofmindaffectstheinterpretationofanotherpersonsfocusofattention
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Theory of mind affects the interpretation of another person's focus of attention

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