Are Infants Altercentric? The Other and the Self in Early Social Cognition
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- Southgate_preprint_final
Accepted author manuscript, 489 KB, PDF document
From early in life, human infants appear capable of taking others' perspectives, and can do so even when the other's perspective conflicts with the infant's perspective. Infants' success in perspective-taking contexts implies that they are managing conflicting perspectives despite a wealth of data suggesting that doing so relies on sufficiently mature Executive Functions, and is a challenge even for adults. In a new theory, I propose that infants can take other's perspectives because they have an altercentric bias. This bias results from a combination of the value that human cognition places on others' attention, and an absence of a competing self-perspective, which would, in older children, create a conflict requiring resolution by Executive Functions. A self-perspective emerges with the development of cognitive self-awareness, sometime in the second year of life, at which point it leads to competition between perspectives. This theory provides a way of explaining infants' ability to take others' perspectives. but raises the possibility that they could do so without representing or understanding the implications of perspective for others' mental states.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Psychological Review |
Volume | 127 |
Issue number | 4 |
Pages (from-to) | 505-523 |
Number of pages | 19 |
ISSN | 0033-295X |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jul 2020 |
- perspective taking, theory of mind, infants, self-representation, altercentrism, ATTRIBUTING FALSE BELIEFS, LEVEL-2 PERSPECTIVE-TAKING, EXECUTIVE FUNCTION, VISUAL-ATTENTION, MENTAL STATES, OTHER DISTINCTION, OBJECT IDENTITY, IMPLICIT THEORY, OXYTOCIN BLURS, MEMORY BIASES
Research areas
ID: 254521732