Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour
Past research tells us that individuals can infer information about a target’s emotional state and intentions from their facial expressions (Frith & Frith, 2012), a process known as mentalising. This extends to inferring the events that caused the facial reaction (e.g. Pillai, Sheppard, & Mi...
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| Format: | Article |
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Elsevier
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39296/ |
| _version_ | 1848801178782007296 |
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| author | Teoh, Yvonne Wallis, Emma Stephen, Ian D. Mitchell, Peter |
| author_facet | Teoh, Yvonne Wallis, Emma Stephen, Ian D. Mitchell, Peter |
| author_sort | Teoh, Yvonne |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Past research tells us that individuals can infer information about a target’s emotional state and intentions from their facial expressions (Frith & Frith, 2012), a process known as mentalising. This extends to inferring the events that caused the facial reaction (e.g. Pillai, Sheppard, & Mitchell, 2012; Pillai et al., 2014), an ability known as retrodictive mindreading. Here, we enter new territory by investigating whether or not people (perceivers) can guess a target’s social context by observing their response to stimuli. In Experiment 1, perceivers viewed targets’ responses and were able to determine whether these targets were alone or observed by another person. In Experiment 2, another group of perceivers, without any knowledge of the social context or what the targets were watching, judged whether targets were hiding or exaggerating their facial expressions; and their judgments discriminated between conditions in which targets were observed and alone. Experiment 3 established that another group of perceivers’ judgments of social context were associated with estimations of target expressivity to some degree. In Experiments 1 and 2, the eye movements of perceivers also varied between conditions in which targets were observed and alone. Perceivers were thus able to infer a target’s social context from their visible response. The results demonstrate an ability to use other minds as a window onto a social context that could not be seen directly. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:37:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-39296 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T21:03:20Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-392962025-09-09T13:47:42Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39296/ Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour Teoh, Yvonne Wallis, Emma Stephen, Ian D. Mitchell, Peter Past research tells us that individuals can infer information about a target’s emotional state and intentions from their facial expressions (Frith & Frith, 2012), a process known as mentalising. This extends to inferring the events that caused the facial reaction (e.g. Pillai, Sheppard, & Mitchell, 2012; Pillai et al., 2014), an ability known as retrodictive mindreading. Here, we enter new territory by investigating whether or not people (perceivers) can guess a target’s social context by observing their response to stimuli. In Experiment 1, perceivers viewed targets’ responses and were able to determine whether these targets were alone or observed by another person. In Experiment 2, another group of perceivers, without any knowledge of the social context or what the targets were watching, judged whether targets were hiding or exaggerating their facial expressions; and their judgments discriminated between conditions in which targets were observed and alone. Experiment 3 established that another group of perceivers’ judgments of social context were associated with estimations of target expressivity to some degree. In Experiments 1 and 2, the eye movements of perceivers also varied between conditions in which targets were observed and alone. Perceivers were thus able to infer a target’s social context from their visible response. The results demonstrate an ability to use other minds as a window onto a social context that could not be seen directly. Elsevier 2017-02-28 Article PeerReviewed Teoh, Yvonne, Wallis, Emma, Stephen, Ian D. and Mitchell, Peter (2017) Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour. Cognition, 159 . pp. 48-60. ISSN 1873-7838 Mentalising; Social context; Eye movements; Inferences; Retrodiction http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027716302694 doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.11.003 doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.11.003 |
| spellingShingle | Mentalising; Social context; Eye movements; Inferences; Retrodiction Teoh, Yvonne Wallis, Emma Stephen, Ian D. Mitchell, Peter Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour |
| title | Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour |
| title_full | Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour |
| title_fullStr | Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour |
| title_full_unstemmed | Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour |
| title_short | Seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour |
| title_sort | seeing the world through others’ minds: inferring social context from behaviour |
| topic | Mentalising; Social context; Eye movements; Inferences; Retrodiction |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39296/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39296/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/39296/ |