Why are listeners sometimes (but not always) egocentric? Making inferences about using others' perspective in referential communication.

ABSTRACT: Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to understand others' mental states, and that these mental states can differ from our own. Although healthy adults have little trouble passing conceptual tests of ToM (e.g., the false belief task [1]), they do not always succeed in using ToM [2,3]. In order to be successful in referential communication, listeners need to correctly infer the way in which a speaker's perspective constrains reference and inhibit their own perspective accordingly. However, listeners may require prompts to take these effortful inferential steps. The current study investigated the possibility of embedding prompts in the instructions for listeners to make inference about using a speaker's perspective. Experiment 1 showed that provision of a clear introductory example of the ful

SUBMITTER: Wang JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7588066 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature