| Popis: |
This experiment investigates the effects of egocentric knowledge or ignorance when making predictions about the actions of others, as observed in prior experiments. To this end, participants will be asked to make predictions about the behavior of a character, as he searches for a ball. The procedure of this experiment will be similar to that of the prior experiments in this project. In prior experiments, participants were presented with a simple scene, consisting of a table, with three baskets placed on top of the table. A character stood behind the table, facing it. In each trial, occluders were placed to obscure the participants, or characters, visual access to some of the baskets, and a red ball was placed in one of the three baskets. Participants were then asked to select the basket in which the character was most likely to search for the ball. In some trials, the occluders were placed such that the participant could see the ball. In other trials, the participant could not see the ball, but could infer its location. And in some trials, the participant could neither see, nor infer, the location of the ball. Occluders also obscured the perspective of the character such that he could see the ball, not see the ball but infer its location, or not infer infer the ball's location, depending upon the trial. This experiment differs from the prior experiments in this project in that, in addition to the three baskets placed on top of the table, a fourth basket will be placed underneath the table, and will be visible to the participant but not to the character. The participant will be informed that in some trials, unbeknownst to the character, the ball will be placed in this fourth, secret basket. And indeed, in some trials, the participant will be able to see the ball in the hidden location, and will have to infer, based upon the positions which are visible to the character, where the character will search for the ball. In prior experiments, when participants did not know the ball's location, they expected the character to search in locations to which they had visual access (that is, they exhibited a bias toward expecting the character to search for the ball in locations that the participant already know about, even if the participants had no reason to believe the ball was actually there). This effect was not observed when participants did know the location of the ball. In this experiment, we expect to find the same result in trials in which the ball is not in the 'trick location.' Because we believe that this effect is driven by the knowledge states of the participant, we do not expect to observe this effect when the ball is visible to the participant, in the 'trick location.' If this predicted result is found, it will validate the assumption that the previously observed effect results from the knowledge states of the participants, and not from any confounding directional features of the stimuli used in the task. |
