The pull of reality: Egocentric bias in adult theory of mind

现实的牵引：成人心理理论中的自我中心偏见

• 批准号: ES/T012528/1
• 负责人: Richard O'Connor
• 金额: $ 21.24万
• 依托单位: University of Hull
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FT012528%2F1
• 关键词: pull; reality; Egocentric; bias; adult

This project investigates the fundamental cognitive processes underlying our ability to understand other people's beliefs about the world, specifically when those beliefs are different to our own. Human beings have been described as "egocentric creatures": even as adults we often assume that other people share our perceptions, desires and knowledge about the world. However, the exact cognitive processes that lead to such errors in adults, in particular when thinking about other people's beliefs, are currently not well understood.Research within psychology has traditionally focused on the egocentricism of children under 5 years of age. Young children show a profound difficulty in reporting that another person has a belief that differs from current reality. Imagine your friend watches you put some chocolate in the kitchen cupboard, and the leaves the room. While she is out, you then move the chocolate into the fridge. If asked "where does she think the chocolate is", as an adult you could relatively easily reply: "in the cupboard", even though you know it is now in the fridge (your "true belief" or "current knowledge"). Young children, however, typically will reply "the fridge", as though they expect their absent friend to also share their current knowledge.Many explanations of this error focus on the immature ability of young children to inhibit their own current true belief, or knowledge. These theoretical accounts claim that thinking about a belief that you know to be false fundamentally involves inhibiting what you know to be true, and it is this process that young children struggle with. These accounts predict that even in adults, who can report another person's false belief with ease, processing the false belief, just as in children, requires successful inhibition of an egocentric bias towards one's current knowledge.In the last decade, psychology has seen increasing research into the processes involved when adults attribute beliefs and other mental states to other people. Understanding how adults process beliefs is of key importance for understanding not only how we as adults are able to socially interact with each other, but also for understanding the developmental changes required for children to develop these abilities. A number of researchers have recently attempted to address whether adults show an egocentric bias towards their own knowledge when processing a false belief, as predicted by many developmental theories. Research to date, however, has failed to provide a definitive answer to this long-standing question.In this project, we will address this issue by using the novel technique of mouse-tracking. Mouse-tracking allows researchers to measure the on-line attraction to different possible responses while participants make a decision. While it has been used across a range of fields in psychology, it has yet to be widely used within theory of mind research. We will use this technique to measure whether adults show an egocentric bias towards their own current knowledge when they are asked to report the false belief of another person. Across 4 experiments, we will use mouse-tracking to: (i) Establish a direct measure of the egocentric bias in belief processing that has been claimed to be present when adults process another person's false belief. (ii) Investigate the nature of this egocentric bias in order to understand what specific aspects of belief processing causes it in adults. This project tests critical assumptions of long-standing theoretical accounts of belief processing in both adults and children, and as such will be of key interest to psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers investigating social cognition. Furthermore, by improving our understanding of adult belief processing, in the long-term this project will also benefit those working with groups that typically have difficulty understanding other people's beliefs, such as in autism and acquired brain injury.

这个项目调查了我们理解他人对世界的信念的能力的基本认知过程，特别是当这些信念与我们自己的信念不同时。人类被描述为“自我中心的生物”：即使是成年人，我们也经常假设其他人分享我们对世界的看法，欲望和知识。然而，导致成年人这种错误的确切认知过程，特别是在思考他人信仰时，目前还没有很好的理解。心理学的研究传统上集中在5岁以下儿童的自我中心主义。幼儿在报告另一个人的信念与当前现实不同时表现出极大的困难。想象一下，你的朋友看着你把一些巧克力放进厨房的橱柜里，然后离开了房间。当她出去的时候，你把巧克力搬到冰箱里。如果被问到“她认为巧克力在哪里”，作为一个成年人，你可以相对容易地回答：“在橱柜里”，即使你知道它现在在冰箱里（你的“真实信念”或“当前知识”）。然而，幼儿通常会回答“冰箱”，好像他们希望缺席的朋友也分享他们目前的知识。许多对这个错误的解释都集中在幼儿抑制自己当前真实信念或知识的不成熟能力上。这些理论认为，思考一个你知道是错误的信念，从根本上说，就是抑制你知道是正确的东西，而这正是幼儿挣扎的过程。这些理论预测，即使是成年人，他们可以很容易地报告他人的错误信念，但在处理错误信念时，就像在儿童中一样，需要成功地抑制对自己现有知识的自我中心偏见。在过去的十年里，心理学已经看到越来越多的研究涉及成年人将信念和其他精神状态归因于他人的过程。了解成年人如何处理信念不仅对于理解我们作为成年人如何能够在社会上相互作用至关重要，而且对于理解儿童发展这些能力所需的发展变化也至关重要。许多研究人员最近试图解决成年人在处理错误信念时是否表现出自我中心的偏见，正如许多发展理论所预测的那样。然而，迄今为止的研究还没有为这个长期存在的问题提供一个明确的答案。在这个项目中，我们将通过使用鼠标跟踪的新技术来解决这个问题。鼠标跟踪允许研究人员在参与者做出决定时测量不同可能反应的在线吸引力。虽然它已被用于心理学的一系列领域，但它尚未被广泛用于心理理论研究。我们将使用这种技术来衡量成年人是否表现出自我中心的偏见，对自己目前的知识，当他们被要求报告的错误信念的另一个人。在4个实验中，我们将使用鼠标跟踪：（i）建立一个直接测量的自我中心偏见的信念处理，已被声称是目前当成年人处理另一个人的错误信念。(ii)调查这种自我中心偏见的本质，以了解信念加工的哪些具体方面导致了成年人的这种偏见。该项目测试了成人和儿童长期存在的信念处理理论的关键假设，因此将成为心理学家，神经科学家和哲学家研究社会认知的关键兴趣。此外，通过提高我们对成人信念处理的理解，从长远来看，这个项目也将使那些与通常难以理解他人信念的群体一起工作的人受益，例如自闭症和后天性脑损伤。

项目成果

Rethinking egocentric bias in adult belief processing: a mouse-tracking paradigm (EPS Conference)

重新思考成人信念处理中的自我中心偏见：小鼠追踪范式（EPS 会议）

• 发表时间: 2023
• 作者: O'Connor RJ

No Evidence for Egocentric Bias on an Explicit False Belief Task in Adults: a Mouse Tracking Paradigm (SPP / ESPP Conference)

没有证据表明成人显式错误信念任务存在自我中心偏见：小鼠追踪范式（SPP / ESPP 会议）

• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: O'Connor RJ