Reasoning about mental states under uncertainty.

Autor: Cho I; Department of Psychology and Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada., Kamkar N; Department of Psychology and Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada., Hosseini-Kamkar N; Department of Psychology and Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2022 Nov 09; Vol. 17 (11), pp. e0277356. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Nov 09 (Print Publication: 2022).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277356
Abstrakt: Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to infer the mental states of others, is integral to facilitating healthy social interactions. People can reason about the mental states of others even with limited or (sometimes) inconsistent information. However, little is known about how people make inferences about the mental states of others under uncertainty, and what features of information are important in aiding mental state reasoning. In the current study, we conducted three unique experiments that alter participant's uncertainty when engaging in ToM tests. In Experiment 1, we simultaneously manipulated both the amount and consistency of information available in social stimuli presented to 59 participants. In Experiments 2 and 3, we aimed to decipher which feature of social stimuli is more conducive to mental state reasoning. Experiment 2 manipulated only the amount of information available to 47 participants, while Experiment 3 manipulated only the consistency of information available to 46 participants. Using both frequentist and Bayesian statistics, results confirmed that manipulating the amount and consistency of information alters ToM performance. Exploratory analysis comparing the effects of the amount and consistency of information suggests that the effects of the consistency of information seem to be stronger than those of the amount of information. Taken together, all three experiments suggest that while both the amount and consistency of information are important features of social stimuli-the consistency of information available is more salient when inferring mental states of others. These findings are discussed in relation to information theory and have important implications for creating enriched social stimuli, which may enhance mental state reasoning in individuals with social deficits.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2022 Cho et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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