Taking the perspectives of many people: Humanization matters.

In a busy space, people encounter many other people with different viewpoints, but classic studies of perspective-taking examine only one agent at a time. This paper explores the issue of selectivity in visual perspective-taking (VPT) when different people are available to interact with. We consider the hypothesis that humanization impacts on VPT in four studies using virtual reality methods. Experiments 1 and 2 use the director task to show that for more humanized agents (an in-group member or a virtual human agent), participants were more likely to use VPT to achieve lower error rate. Experiments 3 and 4 used a two-agent social mental rotation task to show that participants are faster and more accurate to recognize items which are oriented towards a more humanized agent (an in-group member or a naturally moving agent). All results support the claim that humanization alters the propensity to engage in VPT in rich social contexts.

Role-play facilitates children's mindreading of those with atypical color perception.

The present study examined the effects of role-play experience on children's mindreading ability. Forty-one primary school children (20 boys, 21 girls, mean age: 9.37 years, range: 8-11 years) were introduced to a communication task in which the use of mindreading was essential. During each trial, participants viewed a shelf, presented on a laptop, which contained several familiar objects, and they were instructed to touch an object on the shelf following an order issued by a "manager" who stood at the opposite side of the shelf. There were two managers: one was a monkey manager with normal color vision, and the other was a dog manager with restricted color vision. The monkey manager could see all the objects in the same colors as the participants, whereas the dog manager saw some objects in different colors. Participants were required to respond according to the manager's instruction. In the restricted color vision condition, the dog manager saw the colors of objects differently; thus, participants had to work out his intentions, according to his different perspective. In the normal color vision condition, all objects were in the same colors as those seen by the monkey manager. Before the test phase, participants in the role-play group were provided a role-play experience in which they assumed the role of the dog manager with restricted color vision. The experimental data were analyzed using a 2 × 2 mixed-design ANOVA (role-play condition × communication partner condition) to examine differences in the error rate. Both main effects and its interaction were significant. According to the post-hoc analyses, participants in the no-role-play condition made significantly more errors in the restricted color vision condition than in the normal color vision condition, whereas no such difference was found among participants in the role-play condition. These results suggest that role-play experience could facilitate mindreading of characters with restricted color vision.

Role-play experience facilitates reading the mind of individuals with different perception.

The present study examined effects of role-play experience on reading the mind of people with different perception. It is normally difficult but very important in daily life to understand people with different characteristics, including those with restricted color vision. We explored the mechanisms of reading the mind of people with different perception. Forty university students were introduced to a communication task in which the use of mindreading was essential. During each trial, participants viewed a shelf, presented on a laptop computer, which contained several familiar objects, and they were instructed to touch an object on the shelf following an instruction issued by a partner who stood at the opposite side of the shelf. There were two partners: one was a monkey with normal color vision and the other was a dog with restricted color vision. The monkey could see all the objects in the same colors as the participants, whereas the dog saw some objects in different colors (e.g., he saw as yellow objects that the participants saw as red). Participants were required to respond according to the partner's instruction. In the restricted color vision condition, the dog saw the colors of objects differently; thus, participants had to work out his intentions (i.e., mind read), according to his different perspective. In the normal color vision condition, all objects were in the same colors as those seen by the monkey. Before the test phase, the role-play group had a role-play experience in which participants assumed the role of people with restricted color vision. No-role-play participants made significantly more errors in the restricted color vision condition than in the normal color vision condition, whereas among role-play participants, there was no difference between conditions. These results suggest that role-play experience facilitates reading the mind of people with perceptual experiences different from our own.

[Does experience with role play activate "mindreading" in a perspective-taking task?].

This study investigated the development of "mindreading" in young adults. Forty university students were divided into two groups (role-play group and no-role-play group). Then they participated in a perspective-taking task in which the use of mindreading is essential. The participants viewed a computer display of eight familiar objects in different compartments of a wall divider with four rows of four compartments. Some of the compartments were open to see through, while others had back panels and thus which, if any, object was present could only be seen from the participant's side. They were instructed to touch the display corresponding to an object in a compartment in accord with the instructions of a "manager" who stood behind the divider and thus could not see into all of the compartments. The no-role-play group made more errors than the role-play group, and took longer to respond. The effects of role play lasted during five successive task blocks. These results suggest that experience with role play activates mindreading in this perspective-taking task.