Measuring Mentalizing Ability: A Within-Subject Comparison between an Explicit and Implicit Version of a Ball Detection Task.

ABSTRACT: The concept of mentalizing has been widely studied, but almost exclusively through tasks with explicit instructions. Recent studies suggest that people also mentalize on a more implicit level. However, to our knowledge, no study to date has directly contrasted the effects of implicit and explicit mentalizing processes on an implicit dependent measure within-subjects. We implemented this by using two versions of an object detection task, differing only on secondary catch questions. We hypothesized that if explicit mentalizing relies on complementary processes beyond those underlying implicit mentalizing, this would be reflected in enhanced belief effects in the explicit version. Twenty-eight healthy adults watched movies in which, during the first phase, both they themselves and another age

SUBMITTER: Nijhof AD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5056736 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature