Burkart J M, Southgate V
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zürich 8057, Switzerland; Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, Zürich 8050, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2025 Sep;176:106280. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106280. Epub 2025 Jul 8.
Putting oneself, mentally, in someone else's shoes is traditionally considered a late-developing, cognitively demanding skill thought to critically underlie our uniquely human cognition. Recent advances in developmental psychology question this view and instead suggest that from an early age, others' perspectives profoundly permeate how human children attend to, evaluate, and process inputs: their cognition is altercentric. We investigate whether this mode of cognition may be fundamental not only during ontogeny but also phylogeny, by reviewing evidence for altercentric cognition in human children and using these findings to develop different evolutionary scenarios for the phylogenetic emergence of altercentrism. We test these scenarios with data from nonhuman primates and find that altercentric cognition is widespread. Species differences may exist not so much in the prevalence of altercentrism per se, but rather in its strength and the flexibility to switch between alter- and egocentric perspectives. We conclude by highlighting future directions to corroborate that such a shift in perspective towards altercentrism not only in cognitive development, but also evolution, may be warranted.
传统上，设身处地从他人角度思考被认为是一种发展较晚、对认知要求较高的技能，被认为是人类独特认知的关键基础。发展心理学的最新进展对这一观点提出了质疑，相反，研究表明，从幼年起，他人的视角就深刻地渗透到人类儿童关注、评估和处理信息的方式中：他们的认知是以他人为中心的。我们通过回顾人类儿童以他人为中心认知的证据，并利用这些发现为以他人为中心主义在系统发育中的出现发展不同的进化情景，来研究这种认知模式是否不仅在个体发育过程中，而且在系统发育过程中都是基本的。我们用来自非人类灵长类动物的数据对这些情景进行了测试，发现以他人为中心的认知很普遍。物种差异可能不在于以他人为中心主义本身的普遍程度，而在于其强度以及在以他人为中心和以自我为中心视角之间切换的灵活性。我们最后强调了未来的研究方向，以证实这种向以他人为中心主义的视角转变不仅在认知发展中，而且在进化中可能都是合理的。
