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A study to compare children’s performances in a gaze-following (i.e., social) and a vector-following (i.e., non-social) task. The gaze-following task is described in the following preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/vghw8 and pre-registration: https://osf.io/r3bhn We previously developed a gaze-following task to measure interindividual differences in gaze understanding as one aspect of social cognition across the lifespan. In this study, we will compare children’s performance in this task with a vector-following task that is as similar as possible without any social context. With this, we aim to further elucidate the social-cognitive processes that are involved in solving the gaze-following task, that is: Does the gaze-following task recruit a general social-cognitive ability that is shared among different social-cognitive tasks, but is not necessary to solve the non-social vector-following task? Or are exclusively task-specific cognitive processes and abilities involved in solving the gaze-following task, that are (partly) shared with the vector-following task? To examine this, we will additionally administer a theory of mind (ToM) task battery, comprising 4 tasks from the Theory of Mind scale by Wellman and Liu (2004) and two additional perspective-taking tasks, and investigate the correlations of children’s performances in the gaze- and vector-following tasks with the ToM task battery, which also aims at assessing social-cognitive abilities in preschool children, but has very different task demands compared to the gaze-following task. |
