Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom.
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2020 Oct 26;15(10):e0240521. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240521. eCollection 2020.
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 full chain of inferences resulted in large improvement in performance. Residual egocentric errors suggested that the improvement was not simply due to superior comprehension of the instructions. Experiment 2 further dissociated the effect by placing selective emphasis on making inference about inhibiting listeners' own perspective versus using the speaker's perspective. Results showed that only the latter had a significant effect on successful performance. The current findings clearly demonstrated that listeners do not readily make inferences about using speakers' perspectives, but can do so when prompted.
心理理论（Theory of Mind，ToM）是指理解他人心理状态的能力，并且这些心理状态可能与我们自己的心理状态不同。尽管健康成年人在通过心理理论的概念测试（例如，错误信念任务[1]）方面几乎没有困难，但他们并不总是能够成功运用心理理论[2,3]。为了成功进行指代性交流，听众需要正确推断说话者的视角如何限制参考，并相应地抑制自己的视角。然而，听众可能需要提示来进行这些费力的推理步骤。本研究探讨了在听众进行关于使用说话者视角的推理的指令中嵌入提示的可能性。实验 1 表明，提供一个完整推理链的清晰介绍性示例，可大大提高表现。残留的自我中心错误表明，这种改进并非仅仅是由于对指令的更好理解。实验 2 通过选择性地强调关于抑制听众自身视角与使用说话者视角的推理，进一步分离了这种效果。结果表明，只有后者对成功表现有显著影响。当前的研究结果清楚地表明，听众不会轻易地对使用说话者视角进行推理，但在受到提示时可以进行推理。
