Attentional Orienting Rather Than Spontaneous Perspective Taking: A Mirror-Reflection Dot Perspective Task Reveals Submentalizing

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Yet the validity of this task has been challenged by the submentalizing account, which attributes the observed consistency effects to domain-general attentional orienting. We devised a novel mirror-reflection paradigm that equates visual information between participant and avatar while preserving the avatar’s directional cue to isolate the contributions of directional attention versus visual content alignment. In two within-subjects experiments ( n = 50 and 53), participants judged the number of targets visible either to themselves or to an avatar whose body orientation was consistent or inconsistent with target location. Crucially, mirrors ensured that the avatar always shared the participant’s visual access; in control (blackboard) scenes, visual access could differ. Robust egocentric and altercentric interference emerged and, critically, their magnitudes were identical across mirrored and non-mirrored scenes. A blocked-perspective replication (Experiment 2) ruled out perspective-switching costs as an alternative explanation. These findings demonstrate that directional attentional orienting, rather than spontaneous perspective-taking, underlies performance in the dot-perspective task, providing decisive evidence for the submentalizing account and cautioning against the use of the task as a pure index of implicit theory of mind. spontaneous perspective-taking dot-perspective task attentional orienting implicit mentalizing submentalizing Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 1 Introduction Perspective-taking is central to successful social interaction (Galinsky, Ku, & Wang, 2005 ). However, as experience is rooted in one’s own sensory input, adopting others’ viewpoints typically constitutes a cognitively demanding process. This demand leads even neurotypical adults to frequently exhibit egocentric biases, suggesting that perspective-taking requires substantial cognitive effort to suppress self-perspective interference (Epley et al., 2004 ; Qureshi & Monk, 2018 ; Todd & Tamir, 2024 ). Notably, this view appears incongruent with phenomenological experience: if perspective-taking consistently necessitated sustained cognitive resources, the fluidity of daily social interactions would be theoretically implausible due to excessive mental exhaustion. To resolve this paradox, researchers have proposed an implicit theory of mind (implicit mentalizing) system—a fast and efficient social-cognitive module that automatically tracks others’ perspectives and mental states (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009 ). Empirical findings on spontaneous perspective-taking and implicit false beliefs are frequently cited as evidence for implicit mentalizing. Such studies demonstrate that individuals automatically represent others’ perspectives, beliefs, and intentions even when mental state attribution is neither required nor beneficial to task performance (Boccadoro, Sarlo, & Lotto, 2019; Edwards & Low, 2019 ; Kovács, Téglás, & Endress, 2010 ; Samson et al., 2010 ). Nevertheless, the implicit mentalizing account faces substantial critiques. Skeptics argue that most findings attributed to spontaneous perspective-taking can be parsimoniously explained by domain-general cognitive mechanisms, including attentional orienting, spatial coding, and memory retrieval. From this vantage point, putatively “spontaneous” perspective-taking merely reflects the application of such domain-general mechanisms within social contexts. Consequently, scholars have advanced the competing submentalizing hypothesis, which directly counters the premises of implicit mentalizing (Cole & Millett, 2019 ; Conway et al., 2017 ; Gardner & Thorn, 2025 ; Heyes, 2014 ). The debate was ignited by a paradigm known as the dot-perspective task. In this task, participants judge the number of dots displayed in a visual scene featuring a central human avatar facing either left or right. Dots appear on walls flanking both sides, creating scenarios where the avatar’s visible dots may match or mismatch the participant’s own perspective. Crucially, responses slow when the avatar’s perspective conflicts with the participant’s perspective, regardless of whether judgments are made from the self’s or avatar’s viewpoint (Samson et al., 2010 ). The implicit mentalizing account suggests that the slowed responses when judging from the avatar’s perspective during mismatches reflect egocentric interference (suppression of self-perspective), and slowed responses when judging from the self’s perspective reflect altercentric interference (spontaneous processing of the avatar’s visual experience). Conversely, the submentalizing account posits that such consistency effects stem purely from attentional orienting: the avatar’s body orientation serves as a directional cue automatically shifting attention toward one hemifield. Response delays occur when attention is oriented away from the target location. Researchers have predominantly employed two experimental strategies to adjudicate between the accounts: (1) Social vs. non-social cue comparisons. The avatar is replaced with ostensibly non-social directional stimuli (e.g., arrows, cameras, fans; Gardner et al., 2018 ; Jiang et al., 2025 ; Nielsen et al., 2015 ; Santiesteban et al., 2014 , 2015 , 2017 ; Vestner et al., 2022 ). If the human avatar yields a larger consistency effect than the non-social cue, the implicit mentalizing is supported; if the effects are comparable across cue types, submentalizing is supported. (2) Visual access manipulation. An occluding wall is placed between the avatar and the targets, or the avatar is depicted wearing goggles that indicates participants to believe the avatar can or cannot see the targets (Baker et al., 2016 ; Conway et al., 2017 ; Furlanetto et al., 2016 ; Langton, 2018 ; O’Grady et al., 2020 ). If the consistency effect disappears when blocking the avatar’s line of sight, implicit mentalizing is supported; if the effect persists regardless of visual access, submentalizing is supported. Yet, closer scrutiny reveals significant methodological limitations in these two predominant approaches. Regarding the social versus non-social cue comparison, certain ostensibly non-social cues, such as arrows, may in fact carry social connotations, as they represent learned symbolic representations of human intentionality (Furlanetto et al., 2016 ; Vestner et al., 2022 ). This inherent social dimension complicates their use as pure non-social baselines. More critically, since these distinct cue categories may engage divergent cognitive processes, where consistency effects observed with human avatars may reflect spontaneous perspective-taking, while those elicited by arrows or fans may stem solely from attentional orienting, direct comparisons of effect magnitudes cannot conclusively adjudicate between mentalizing and submentalizing accounts. The visual access manipulation paradigm suffers from parallel shortcomings. Although physical barriers (e.g., walls) obstruct an avatar’s line of sight, participants may persist in attributing knowledge of occluded objects to the agent (“He knows targets exist behind the wall despite not seeing them”). This phenomenon aligns with empirical evidence demonstrating that humans routinely infer intentions toward perceptually unavailable stimuli (Quesque et al., 2018 ), and that even blind individuals engage in spatial perspective-taking (Tinti et al., 2018 ). Consequently, persistence of consistency effects under occlusion may reflect residual mental state attribution rather than attentional mechanisms. Furthermore, occlusion fundamentally alters spatial configurations, rendering cognitive processes in occluded scenarios potentially distinct from those in standard settings. For instance, effects in occluded contexts might originate from attentional orienting, whereas those in unobstructed environments could reflect genuine perspective-taking. To address these methodological constraints, the present study introduces a novel mirror-reflection paradigm based on the dot-perspective task. In this design, a human avatar positioned at the center of the visual scene facing either left or right, while target objects appear in its anterior or posterior fields, consistent with the original paradigm. The critical innovation involves placing mirrors on both sides of the display, enabling the avatar to perceive posterior targets via reflection (Fig. 1 ). Consequently, regardless of orientation, the avatar possesses identical visual information to that of the participant, with full access to all targets. By comparing performance between mirror-reflection and non-reflection conditions, if consistency effects persist undiminished when visual information is equated, they should originate from attentional orienting driven by the avatar’s directional cue, supporting the submentalizing account. If consistency effects dissipate under mirror-reflection, they likely reflect genuine spontaneous perspective-taking, supporting the implicit mentalizing account. It should be emphasized that although both the prior occlusion and current reflection paradigms share the same design logic—decoupling directional consistency from perspective consistency—they differ in essential ways. The occlusion paradigm physically obstructs the avatar’s line of sight using barriers, ensuring the avatar “cannot see” targets and thus creating visual information asymmetry with the participant. In contrast, the reflection paradigm enables the avatar to “fully see” all targets through mirror reflection, thereby establishing visual information symmetry. Crucially, whereas visual inaccessibility in occlusion designs does not preclude perspective-taking (as argued earlier), visual equivalence in the reflection design eliminates this interpretative ambiguity. Moreover, occlusion substantially alters spatial configurations by introducing physically barriers, compromising ecological validity and limiting generalizability to non-occluded scenarios. Conversely, peripheral mirrors preserve the original spatial relationships between avatars and targets, allowing conclusions from reflection conditions to generalize to standard non-reflection contexts. In this study, we conducted two experiments adapting the dot-perspective task to compare consistency effect magnitudes between reflection and non-reflection scenarios. This comparison directly tests whether observed effects stem primarily from spontaneous perspective-taking or attentional orienting mechanisms, thereby providing critical evidence for either the implicit mentalizing or submentalizing account. Experiment 2 constituted a direct replication of Experiment 1 with one modification: whereas Experiment 1 intermixed self-perspective and other-perspective trials within blocks, Experiment 2 segregated them into separate blocks to eliminate the cognitive costs associated with frequent perspective switching (Ferguson, Scheepers, & Bard, 2017; Segal, 2025 ). 2 Experiment 1 2.1 Method 2.1.1 Participants An a-priori power analysis conducted with G*Power 3.1 indicated that a repeated-measures ANOVA with medium effect size ( f = 0.25), α = 0.05, and power (1 – β) = 0.90 required at least 38 participants. We recruited 50 right-handed undergraduates (14 male, 36 female; M _age = 19.38 years, SD = 1.45) who were naïve to the purpose of the study and reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision. All participants provided written informed consent prior to the experiment and received course credits or 10 RMB upon study completion. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and all protocol and procedures were approved by the University research ethics board. 2.1.2 Design and Stimuli A 2 (Scene: Blackboard vs. Mirror) × 2 (Perspective: Self vs. Other) × 2 (Consistency: Consistent vs. Inconsistent) within-subjects design was implemented. The experiment was programmed with Python and presented on a 21-inch monitor (1920 × 1080 resolution, 60Hz refresh rate) with participants seated 60 cm from the screen. Each trial displayed a visual scene (1000 × 600 pixels) featuring a central avatar facing left or right, flanked by desks containing 0–2 soccer balls, with either vertical blackboards or mirrors positioned laterally (Fig. 1 ). In mirror scenarios, reflected images ensured identical visual access to targets for both avatar and participant regardless of orientation. In blackboard scenarios, the avatar’s visual access to posterior targets was objectively obstructed. All scene images were rendered using Blender 4.1 software and centrally presented. 2.1.3 Procedure As depicted in Fig. 2 , each trial began with a 500-ms fixation cross at screen center, followed by a 1500-ms perspective cue (“You” or “He”). Subsequently, the scene appeared remained until response. Participants judged how many balls they (Self-perspective) or the avatar (Other-perspective) could see according the prior perspective cue. Responses were collected with the right hand on the spacebar (thumb: 0 balls), “J” key (index finger: 1 ball), and “K” key (middle finger: 2 balls). This single-hand response design mitigated spatial compatibility effects arising from left/right stimulus–response mappings. Participants were indicated to respond as quickly and accurately as possible. The experiment comprised 240 trials (30 per condition) with avatar orientation, target locations, and quantities fully counterbalanced. Trial order was randomized; every 80 trials were followed by a 30-s break. Prior to the test phase, participants completed 32 practice trials with accuracy feedback (1000 ms); no feedback was provided during the formal test. Unlike the original paradigm which presented a digit after the cue and required participants to judge whether the upcoming scene matched that digit (Samson et al., 2010 ), we eliminated the digit-display phase to minimize working-memory load and extraneous cognitive demands. To ensure participants understood visual differences between blackboard and mirror scenes, 360° scene rotations were displayed during the instruction phase. 2.1.4 Data Processing Given that mean accuracy rates exceeded 95% across all conditions, our analysis focused on participants' correct Reaction times (RTs). We used the inter-quartile range (IQR) rule to screen RTs for each participant. Trials with RTs below (Q1–1.5 × IQR) or above (Q3 + 1.5 × IQR) were discarded as outliers and excluded from analysis. Statistical analyses were performed using the bruceR package (Bao, 2024 ) in R version 4.4.2. 2.2 Results Descriptive statistics for Experiment 1 are summarized in Table 1 . A 2 (Scene) × 2 (Perspective) × 2 (Consistency) repeated-measures ANOVA on RTs revealed significant main effects across all factors. For Scene, responses were significantly slower in blackboard conditions than mirror conditions, F (1, 49) = 7.89, p = .007, η2 p = 0.14. For Perspective, responses from the other perspective were slower than from the self perspective, F (1, 49) = 242.98, p < .001, η2 p = 0.83. For Consistency, consistent trials were faster than inconsistent trials, F (1, 49) = 166.20, p < .001, η2 p = 0.77. The Perspective × Consistency interaction was significant, F (1, 49) = 82.73, p < .001, η2 p = 0.63. Simple effects analyses demonstrated that under other-perspective judgments, responses were significantly faster for consistent versus inconsistent trials, F (1, 49) = 241.48, p < .001, η2 p = 0.83, reflecting the classic egocentric interference effect. Similarly, under self-perspective judgments, consistent trials elicited faster responses than inconsistent trials, F (1, 49) = 29.36, p < .001, η2 p = 0.38, indicating an altercentric interference effect, albeit substantially weaker than its egocentric counterpart. Table 1 Descriptive statistics for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 Experiment 1( n = 50) Experiment 2( n = 53) Scene Perspective Consistency RT (ms) Accuracy RT (ms) Accuracy Blackboard Self Consistent 828.55(225.63) 0.99(0.02) 699.65(102.72) 0.99(0.02) Inconsistent 889.93(239.50) 0.95(0.07) 722.10(112.96) 0.99(0.02) Other Consistent 917.24(234.79) 0.99(0.03) 948.11(196.13) 0.99(0.03) Inconsistent 1080.24 (225.86) 0.95(0.07) 1085.03(193.88) 0.97(0.05) Mirror Self Consistent 811.16(204.85) 0.99(0.02) 712.35(122.23) 0.99(0.02) Inconsistent 850.45(235.42) 0.99(0.02) 731.22(121.51) 0.99(0.02) Other Consistent 916.32(238.84) 0.99(0.02) 976.81(253.42) 0.98(0.07) Inconsistent 1051.05(269.53) 0.96(0.04) 1084.43(228.71) 0.97(0.05) Note : Values in the table represent mean ( M ) and standard deviation ( SD , in parentheses). RT = Reaction time. Critically, neither the Scene × Consistency interaction, F (1, 49) = 3.77, p = .058, nor the Scene × Perspective interaction, F (1, 49) = 1.07, p = .306, nor the three-way interaction reached significance, F (1, 49) = 0.07, p = .796. This pattern confirms that both egocentric and altercentric interferences persisted robustly across blackboard and mirror scenarios (Fig. 3 ). To quantify these effects, we computed consistency effects as inconsistent minus consistent RTs for each participant. Independent sample t -tests showed no reliable difference between scenes either for egocentric interference (blackboard: M = 163.01 ms, SE = 11.82; mirror: M = 134.72 ms, SE = 12.93), t (49) = 1.80, p = .078, or for altercentric interference (blackboard: M = 61.38 ms, SE = 13.72; mirror: M = 39.29 ms, SE = 13.07), t (49) = 1.14, p = .258. 2.3 Discussion Experiment 1 demonstrated high accuracy rates (> 95%) across all conditions, confirming participants’ ability to discriminate between visual scenes. Critically, the implicit mentalizing account predicts that consistency effects should vanish in mirror scenarios where the avatar’s visual information perfectly matches the participant’s. However, robust egocentric and altercentric interferences persisted undiminished in mirror conditions, paralleling effects in blackboard controls. This suggests that participants' judgments were strongly influenced by the orientation of the avatar: responses slowed down significantly whenever the avatar's orientation was inconsistent with the position of the target, regardless of whether the number of targets visible to the avatar was consistent with that visible to the self. Thus, the results of Experiment 1 support the submentalizing account, which posits that the consistency effect in the dot perspective task is mainly caused by attentional orienting. One potential limitation of Experiment 1 is that participants switched repeatedly between self- and other-perspective trials within the same block. Prior work shows that such perspective switching, relative to maintaining a single perspective, involves more cognitive efforts and prolongs reaction times (Ferguson et al., 2017 ; Segal, 2025 ). Moreover, presenting both perspectives in the same block may heighten the salience of the avatar, creating an implicit cue that encourages participants to track the avatar’s viewpoint even when judging from the self perspective (Martin et al., 2019 ; O’Grady et al., 2020 ). To eliminate these confounds, Experiment 2 employed a between-blocks perspective design, thereby eliminating perspective-switching costs and implicit cueing effects and providing a more stringent test of the findings from Experiment 1. 3 Experiment 2 3.1 Method 3.1.1 Participants Fifty-three right-handed undergraduates (8 male, 45 female; M _age = 19.32 years, SD = 1.40) were recruited for Experiment 2, who had no prior experience with the task and reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision. All participants provided written informed consent prior to the experiment and received course credits or 10 RMB upon study completion. 3.1.2 Design and Procedure The 2 (Scene: Blackboard vs. Mirror) × 2 (Perspective: Self vs. Other) × 2 (Consistency: Consistent vs. Inconsistent) within-subjects design was retained, but Perspective was now manipulated between blocks. Half of the participants completed the Self block first, followed by the Other block; the remaining participants received the reverse order. Each block contained 120 trials, yielding the same 240 total trials as in Experiment 1. All other procedural details (stimuli, timing, response mapping, and outlier removal) were identical to Experiment 1. 3.2 Results Descriptive statistics are also showed in Table 1 . A 2 × 2 × 2 repeated-measures ANOVA on RTs yielded the following results. The main effect of Scene was not significant, F (1, 52) = 3.42, p = .070. The main effect of Perspective was significant, F (1, 52) = 283.91, p < .001, η2 p = 0.85, with responses slower when adopting the other perspective than when adopting the self perspective. The main effect of Consistency was also significant, F (1, 52) = 149.08, p < .001, η2 p = 0.74, such that responses in consistent trials were faster than in inconsistent trials. The Perspective × Consistency interaction was significant, F (1, 52) = 125.43, p < .001, η2 p = 0.71. In the other-perspective condition, consistent trials were responded to significantly faster than inconsistent trials (egocentric interference), F (1, 52) = 172.16, p < .001, η2 p = 0.78. In the self-perspective condition, consistent trials were also responded to faster than inconsistent trials (altercentric interference), F (1, 52) = 18.69, p < .001, η2 p = 0.26, though the effect was substantially smaller than the egocentric interference. Neither the Scene × Consistency interaction, F (1, 52) = 3.28, p = .076, nor the Scene × Perspective interaction, F (1, 52) = 0.09, p = .761,, nor the three-way interaction reached significance, F (1, 52) = 2.72, p = .105.These outcomes replicate Experiment 1, demonstrating robust egocentric and altercentric interferences in both blackboard and mirror scenes (Fig. 4 ). Direct comparisons of the consistency effect magnitudes (inconsistent–consistent) revealed no reliable differences between scenes either for egocentric interference (blackboard: M = 136.92 ms, SE = 9.74; mirror: M = 107.62 ms, SE = 13.81), t (52) = 1.96, p = .056, or for altercentric interference (blackboard: M = 22.44 ms, SE = 5.87; mirror: M = 18.87 ms, SE = 6.52), t (52) = 0.45, p = .654. 3.3 Discussion Experiment 2 replicated key findings despite eliminating perspective-switching costs and implicit cue effects: consistency effects remained undiminished in mirror scenarios where visual information was equated. This persistence of directional interference despite visual equivalence confirms that responses were primarily governed by attentional orienting triggered by avatar orientation. Consequently, these findings provide further convergent evidence for the submentalizing account, suggesting that the consistency effect in the dot-perspective task arises from domain-general attentional orienting rather than from spontaneous perspective-taking. 4 General Discussion Spontaneous perspective-taking has ben regarded as pivotal evidence for an implicit mentalizing system. Nevertheless, the dot-perspective task—the predominant paradigm for assessing this phenomenon—has generated substantial theoretical and methodological controversy (Cole & Millett, 2019 ; Gardner & Thorn, 2025 ; Heyes, 2014 ). Building on existing variants, the present study introduced an ingenious application of mirror-reflection principles to contrast scenarios with versus without reflective access. This design advances the critical aim of elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying consistency effects in the dot-perspective task. Convergent results from two experiments demonstrate that response speeds were primarily modulated by directional consistency between avatar orientation and target location. Crucially, even in mirror-reflection scenarios—where visual information remained identical for both the avatar and participant—robust consistency effects persisted at magnitudes comparable to non-reflection conditions. These findings substantiate the dominant role of attentional orienting and lend stronger empirical support to the submentalizing hypothesis. In the dot-perspective task, so-called spontaneous perspective-taking primarily refers to the influence of irrelevant other’s perspectives on self-judgment processes. Thus, past debates have centered on the mechanism underlying the consistency effect in the self-perspective condition, namely, altercentric interference. Researchers have mainly employed two approaches—cue substitution and visual occlusion—to test alternative explanations based on attentional orienting, yet many studies have reached conflicting conclusions. For instance, studies using occlusion to manipulate the avatar’s visual access have found that altercentric interference disappears when the avatar cannot see the target (e.g., Baker et al., 2016 ; Furlanetto et al., 2016 ). These findings have been interpreted as evidence that participants spontaneously represent another’s visual content, supporting the implicit mentalizing account. However, this conclusion should be treated with caution. Research in gaze-cueing field shows that visual accessibility modulates the magnitude of gaze-cueing effects (Teufel et al., 2009 , 2010 ). Therefore, manipulating occlusion in the dot perspective task might weaken the attentional orienting effect of the avatar’s orientation but not the spontaneous perspective-taking process. Other studies have found that altercentric interference persists even when the avatar cannot see the targets (Conway et al., 2017 ; Wilson et al., 2017 ), leading to the conclusion that the effect is due to attentional orienting, thus supporting the submentalizing account. However, considering that participants might still engage in perspective-taking or intention attribution even when the avatar is occluded (Quesque et al., 2018 ), the implicit mentalizing explanation cannot be ruled out. The mirror-reflection paradigm employed in the present study neatly resolves these issues. On the one hand, there is no visual occlusion in either the reflection or non-reflection scenes, so the attentional orienting effect of the avatar’s orientation is comparable. On the other hand, in the reflection scene, participants are aware that the avatar can “see” all the targets via the mirror, which is consistent with their own visual content. If participants were to represent the avatar’s perspective in this situation, no consistency effect should emerge. However, the results showed that the magnitude of altercentric interference was the same in both reflection and non-reflection scenes, suggesting that the effect is more likely to reflect the influence of the avatar’s orientation. Although the study primarily focused on the debate regarding spontaneous perspective-taking, the observation egocentric interference in both reflection and non-reflection scenes during other-perspective trials also serves as compelling evidence for the dominant role of attentional orienting in the dot-perspective task. From a mentalizing or perspective-taking standpoint, egocentric interference is typically viewed as the cognitive cost of inhibiting one’s own representation (e.g., when “I see 2” but the task requires reporting “he sees 1”). In the reflection scene, since the avatar sees the same content as the self, there is no perspective conflict, and thus no need for self-perspective inhibition. Theoretically, no reaction time difference should emerge, and participants might even adopt the strategy of judging from the self-perspective whenever a mirror appears, ignoring the avatar’s orientation. However, both experiments observed a directional consistency effect of the comparable magnitude as in the non-reflection scenes. This suggests that, even under explicit perspective-taking demands, the consistency effect is better explained by attentional orienting. In this light, labeling the consistency effect in the other-perspective condition as “egocentric interference” seems inappropriate. The smaller consistency effect in the self-perspective condition compared to the other-perspective condition has traditionally been explained by the mentalizing account as reflecting a higher priority for egocentric processing (Samson et al., 2010 ; Todd & Tamir, 2024 ). Specifically, it is assumed that inhibiting spontaneous representations of another’s perspective when representing one’s own perspective is less demanding than inhibiting one’s own perspective when representing another’s perspective. However, from the perspective of the submentalizing account, this difference is more likely due to the influence of perspective cues on attentional orienting effects. The presence of a perspective cue before the scene presentation, such as the word “he” preceding other-perspective trials, is stored in working memory and creates a processing expectation that may enhance participants’ subsequent attention to the avatar (Summerfield & Egner, 2009 ). In contrast, in the self-perspective condition, attention is primarily captured by the avatar in a bottom-up manner, and the prior perspective cue (“you”) may actually inhibit participants’ automatic attention to the avatar, thereby reducing the overall attentional orienting effect. The present study also has important practical implications. Many researchers have used the dot-perspective task as a tool to assess implicit theory-of-mind abilities in special populations. For instance, some studies have employed the dot-perspective task to examine the performance of psychopathic offenders, finding that this group did not exhibit significant altercentric interference. As a result, it has been concluded that they lack a spontaneous tendency to represent others’ perspectives or that their implicit theory-of-mind system is impaired (Draytona et al., 2018 ). Similar assessments have been conducted on individuals with schizophrenia (Kronbichler et al., 2019 ), autism (Doi et al., 2020 ; Tei et al., 2019 ), and narcissistic personality (Bukowski & Samson, 2021 ). The findings of the current study cast doubt on the conclusions of the aforementioned research. For example, the performance characteristics of individuals with autism in this task may be due to abnormalities in attention mechanisms rather than deficits in implicit theory of mind. Using it as a clinical diagnostic tool may pose a significant risk of misuse. Other studies have used this task to investigate the impact of social and emotional factors such as gender (Weidema et al., 2023 ), emotion (Todd & Simpson, 2016 ), and social identity (Simpson & Todd, 2017 ) on implicit theory of mind, and the conclusions of these studies should also be treated with caution. Finally, the present study still has certain limitations. In terms of experimental design, the mirrors and blackboards used in the reflection and non-reflection scenes, respectively, are distinctive stimuli. Participants inevitably undergo a psychological process of visual discrimination when making judgments, which may have a potential impact on the actual responses. Future studies could replace the blackboard with a visually similar but non-reflective stimulus, such as glass. Additionally, the experimental materials were virtual modeled scenes, and the differences between the two types of scenes were mainly demonstrated through animations and text prompts beforehand, rather than through real experiences, which may have suppressed spontaneous mentalizing processes. Future studies could employ a combination of real-person filmed scenes and live demonstrations. Moreover, due to practical constraints, the present study had a significant gender imbalance in the sample distribution. Future studies could conduct replications with larger samples that are gender-balanced. Lastly, the present study focused on the spontaneous nature of Level-1 perspective-taking (“whether the object is visible”), and future studies could draw on the reflection paradigm of this study to examine spontaneous Level-2 perspective-taking (“what the object looks like”) as found in previous research. 5 Conclusion Through two experiments, the present study found that the dot-perspective task exhibited comparable directional consistency effects in both reflection and non-reflection scenes. This indicates that participants’ judgment processes were primarily influenced by spatial attentional cues, rather than by the alignment of self- and other-perspective visual content. The results strongly support the submentalizing account and refute the implicit mentalizing account. Specifically, the consistency effect in the dot-perspective task primarily reflects domain-general attentional orienting effects, rather than spontaneous perspective-taking. Declarations Author contributions: Conceptualization: Zhou Bingping, Wang Wei; Methodology: Zhou Bingping, Yang Ke; Formal analysis and investigation: Zhou Bingping, Wang Wei; Writing - original draft preparation: Wang Wei, Zhou Bingping; Writing - review and editing:Shangguan Chenyu, Sun Zhongqiang; Funding acquisition: Zhou Bingping, Shangguan Chenyu, Sun Zhongqiang; Supervision: Zhou Bingping, Sun Zhongqiang. Funding: This work was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LQ23C090002), the Zhejiang Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project (25NDJC108YB), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62407022). Data availability: Data and Code are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/7fxjk/). Competing interests: There authors declare no conflicts of interest. Ethics approval: The study protocols were approved by the Institutional Review Board, School of Education, Wenzhou University (IRB Number: WZUED20250601). Consent to participate: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. References Apperly, I. A., & Butterfill, S. A. (2009). Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states? Psychological Review , 116 (4), 953–970. Baker, L. J., Levin, D. T., & Saylor, M. M. (2016). The extent of default visual perspective taking in complex layouts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 42 (4), 508–516. Bao, H.-W.-S. (2024). bruceR: Broadly useful convenient and efficient R functions (版 2024.6) [Software]. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=bruceR Boccadoro, S., Cracco, E., Hudson, A. R., Bardi, L., Nijhof, A. D., Wiersema, J. R., Brass, M., & Mueller, S. C. (2019). 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K., Perceval, G., Davies, I., Su, P., Huang, J., & Meinzer, M. (2019). Visual perspective taking in young and older adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 148 (11), 2006–2026. Nielsen, M. K., Slade, L., Levy, J. P., & Holmes, A. (2015). Inclined to see it your way: Do altercentric intrusion effects in visual perspective taking reflect an intrinsically social process? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006) , 68 (10), 1931–1951. O’Grady, C., Scott-Phillips, T., Lavelle, S., & Smith, K. (2020). Perspective-taking is spontaneous but not automatic. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006) , 73 (10), 1605–1628. Quesque, F., Chabanat, E., & Rossetti, Y. (2018). Taking the point of view of the blind: Spontaneous level-2 perspective-taking in irrelevant conditions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 79 , 356–364. Qureshi, A. W., & Monk, R. L. (2018). Executive function underlies both perspective selection and calculation in Level-1 visual perspective taking. Psychon Bull Rev , 25 (4), 1526–1534. Samson, D., Apperly, I. A., Braithwaite, J. J., Andrews, B. J., & Scott, S. E. B. (2010). Seeing it their way: Evidence for rapid and involuntary computation of what other people see. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 36 (5), 1255–1266. Santiesteban, I., Catmur, C., Hopkins, S. C., Bird, G., & Heyes, C. (2014). Avatars and arrows: Implicit mentalizing or domain-general processing? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 40 (3), 929–937. Santiesteban, I., Kaur, S., Bird, G., & Catmur, C. (2017). Attentional processes, not implicit mentalizing, mediate performance in a perspective-taking task: Evidence from stimulation of the temporoparietal junction. NeuroImage , 155 , 305–311. Santiesteban, I., Shah, P., White, S., Bird, G., & Heyes, C. (2015). Mentalizing or submentalizing in a communication task? Evidence from autism and a camera control. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 22 (3), 844–849. Segal, D. (2025). The cost of perspective switching: Constraints on simultaneous activation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 1–10. Simpson, A. J., & Todd, A. R. (2017). Intergroup visual perspective-taking: Shared group membership impairs self-perspective inhibition but may facilitate perspective calculation. Cognition , 166 , 371–381. Summerfield, C., & Egner, T. (2009). Expectation (and attention) in visual cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 13 (9), 403–409. Tei, S., Fujino, J., Itahashi, T., Aoki, Y., Ohta, H., Kubota, M., Hashimoto, R., Nakamura, M., Kato, N., & Takahashi, H. (2019). Egocentric biases and atypical generosity in autistic individuals. Autism Research , 12 (11), 1598–1608. Teufel, C., Alexis, D. M., Clayton, N. S., & Davis, G. (2010). Mental-state attribution drives rapid, reflexive gaze following. 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Weidema, A., Hollarek, M., Sijtsma, H., Lee, N. C., Walsh, R. J., Buuren, M. van, & Krabbendam, L. (2023). Increased interference from conflicting perspectives and gender differences: A longitudinal study during adolescence. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , 235 , 105717. Wilson, C. J., Soranzo, A., & Bertamini, M. (2017). Attentional interference is modulated by salience not sentience. Acta Psychologica , 178 , 56–65. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. 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1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":113323,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eExamples of blackboard and mirror scenarios. In the consistent condition, the avatar’s orientation matches the ball location; in the inconsistent condition, it does not. For the blackboard scenarios, in the consistent condition, both the avatar and the participant see the same number of balls, while in the inconsistent condition, the number of balls visible to the avatar and the participant differs. For the mirror scenarios, the avatar and the participant always see the same number of balls due to reflection, regardless of consistency.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7647599/v1/402f7070f6486086780857a2.png"},{"id":92617859,"identity":"207fcf3b-b3f6-4526-afd0-d1500b5bb247","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-01 17:55:49","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":59198,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eTrial examples in Experiment 1. When the perspective cue was “You”, the participant would respond with “How many balls can you see?”. When the cue was “He”, the participant would respond with “How many balls can he see?”\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7647599/v1/f19c5f289fb861fa52120d15.png"},{"id":92616506,"identity":"a3de0b4c-c096-4656-bca5-56c7ff8c5f90","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-01 17:39:49","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":212578,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eReaction times by perspective, consistency, and scene in Experiment 1\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7647599/v1/a5244f7d4c380f23e08aef30.png"},{"id":92617338,"identity":"f0983d3d-7e62-4f36-b4b0-ff92eadad0fe","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-01 17:47:49","extension":"png","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":193087,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eReaction times by perspective, consistency, and scene in Experiment 2\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage4.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7647599/v1/1f52ed325df46f38d3a1d034.png"},{"id":98244571,"identity":"651c80b4-6fef-4c26-abd7-cf9037d86155","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-15 16:14:25","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1226220,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7647599/v1/df1e1add-d3ba-44e8-b579-b2bd00e0db1a.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Attentional Orienting Rather Than Spontaneous Perspective Taking: A Mirror-Reflection Dot Perspective Task Reveals Submentalizing","fulltext":[{"header":"1 Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003ePerspective-taking is central to successful social interaction (Galinsky, Ku, \u0026amp; Wang, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e). However, as experience is rooted in one\u0026rsquo;s own sensory input, adopting others\u0026rsquo; viewpoints typically constitutes a cognitively demanding process. This demand leads even neurotypical adults to frequently exhibit egocentric biases, suggesting that perspective-taking requires substantial cognitive effort to suppress self-perspective interference (Epley et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Qureshi \u0026amp; Monk, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Todd \u0026amp; Tamir, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Notably, this view appears incongruent with phenomenological experience: if perspective-taking consistently necessitated sustained cognitive resources, the fluidity of daily social interactions would be theoretically implausible due to excessive mental exhaustion.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo resolve this paradox, researchers have proposed an implicit theory of mind (implicit mentalizing) system\u0026mdash;a fast and efficient social-cognitive module that automatically tracks others\u0026rsquo; perspectives and mental states (Apperly \u0026amp; Butterfill, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). Empirical findings on spontaneous perspective-taking and implicit false beliefs are frequently cited as evidence for implicit mentalizing. Such studies demonstrate that individuals automatically represent others\u0026rsquo; perspectives, beliefs, and intentions even when mental state attribution is neither required nor beneficial to task performance (Boccadoro, Sarlo, \u0026amp; Lotto, 2019; Edwards \u0026amp; Low, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Kov\u0026aacute;cs, T\u0026eacute;gl\u0026aacute;s, \u0026amp; Endress, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Samson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNevertheless, the implicit mentalizing account faces substantial critiques. Skeptics argue that most findings attributed to spontaneous perspective-taking can be parsimoniously explained by domain-general cognitive mechanisms, including attentional orienting, spatial coding, and memory retrieval. From this vantage point, putatively \u0026ldquo;spontaneous\u0026rdquo; perspective-taking merely reflects the application of such domain-general mechanisms within social contexts. Consequently, scholars have advanced the competing submentalizing hypothesis, which directly counters the premises of implicit mentalizing (Cole \u0026amp; Millett, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Conway et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Gardner \u0026amp; Thorn, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Heyes, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe debate was ignited by a paradigm known as the dot-perspective task. In this task, participants judge the number of dots displayed in a visual scene featuring a central human avatar facing either left or right. Dots appear on walls flanking both sides, creating scenarios where the avatar\u0026rsquo;s visible dots may match or mismatch the participant\u0026rsquo;s own perspective. Crucially, responses slow when the avatar\u0026rsquo;s perspective conflicts with the participant\u0026rsquo;s perspective, regardless of whether judgments are made from the self\u0026rsquo;s or avatar\u0026rsquo;s viewpoint (Samson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). The implicit mentalizing account suggests that the slowed responses when judging from the avatar\u0026rsquo;s perspective during mismatches reflect egocentric interference (suppression of self-perspective), and slowed responses when judging from the self\u0026rsquo;s perspective reflect altercentric interference (spontaneous processing of the avatar\u0026rsquo;s visual experience). Conversely, the submentalizing account posits that such consistency effects stem purely from attentional orienting: the avatar\u0026rsquo;s body orientation serves as a directional cue automatically shifting attention toward one hemifield. Response delays occur when attention is oriented away from the target location.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eResearchers have predominantly employed two experimental strategies to adjudicate between the accounts: (1) Social vs. non-social cue comparisons. The avatar is replaced with ostensibly non-social directional stimuli (e.g., arrows, cameras, fans; Gardner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Jiang et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Nielsen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Santiesteban et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Vestner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). If the human avatar yields a larger consistency effect than the non-social cue, the implicit mentalizing is supported; if the effects are comparable across cue types, submentalizing is supported. (2) Visual access manipulation. An occluding wall is placed between the avatar and the targets, or the avatar is depicted wearing goggles that indicates participants to believe the avatar can or cannot see the targets (Baker et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Conway et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Furlanetto et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Langton, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; O\u0026rsquo;Grady et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). If the consistency effect disappears when blocking the avatar\u0026rsquo;s line of sight, implicit mentalizing is supported; if the effect persists regardless of visual access, submentalizing is supported.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet, closer scrutiny reveals significant methodological limitations in these two predominant approaches. Regarding the social versus non-social cue comparison, certain ostensibly non-social cues, such as arrows, may in fact carry social connotations, as they represent learned symbolic representations of human intentionality (Furlanetto et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Vestner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). This inherent social dimension complicates their use as pure non-social baselines. More critically, since these distinct cue categories may engage divergent cognitive processes, where consistency effects observed with human avatars may reflect spontaneous perspective-taking, while those elicited by arrows or fans may stem solely from attentional orienting, direct comparisons of effect magnitudes cannot conclusively adjudicate between mentalizing and submentalizing accounts.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe visual access manipulation paradigm suffers from parallel shortcomings. Although physical barriers (e.g., walls) obstruct an avatar\u0026rsquo;s line of sight, participants may persist in attributing knowledge of occluded objects to the agent (\u0026ldquo;He knows targets exist behind the wall despite not seeing them\u0026rdquo;). This phenomenon aligns with empirical evidence demonstrating that humans routinely infer intentions toward perceptually unavailable stimuli (Quesque et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), and that even blind individuals engage in spatial perspective-taking (Tinti et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). Consequently, persistence of consistency effects under occlusion may reflect residual mental state attribution rather than attentional mechanisms. Furthermore, occlusion fundamentally alters spatial configurations, rendering cognitive processes in occluded scenarios potentially distinct from those in standard settings. For instance, effects in occluded contexts might originate from attentional orienting, whereas those in unobstructed environments could reflect genuine perspective-taking.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo address these methodological constraints, the present study introduces a novel mirror-reflection paradigm based on the dot-perspective task. In this design, a human avatar positioned at the center of the visual scene facing either left or right, while target objects appear in its anterior or posterior fields, consistent with the original paradigm. The critical innovation involves placing mirrors on both sides of the display, enabling the avatar to perceive posterior targets via reflection (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). Consequently, regardless of orientation, the avatar possesses identical visual information to that of the participant, with full access to all targets. By comparing performance between mirror-reflection and non-reflection conditions, if consistency effects persist undiminished when visual information is equated, they should originate from attentional orienting driven by the avatar\u0026rsquo;s directional cue, supporting the submentalizing account. If consistency effects dissipate under mirror-reflection, they likely reflect genuine spontaneous perspective-taking, supporting the implicit mentalizing account.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt should be emphasized that although both the prior occlusion and current reflection paradigms share the same design logic\u0026mdash;decoupling directional consistency from perspective consistency\u0026mdash;they differ in essential ways. The occlusion paradigm physically obstructs the avatar\u0026rsquo;s line of sight using barriers, ensuring the avatar \u0026ldquo;cannot see\u0026rdquo; targets and thus creating visual information asymmetry with the participant. In contrast, the reflection paradigm enables the avatar to \u0026ldquo;fully see\u0026rdquo; all targets through mirror reflection, thereby establishing visual information symmetry. Crucially, whereas visual inaccessibility in occlusion designs does not preclude perspective-taking (as argued earlier), visual equivalence in the reflection design eliminates this interpretative ambiguity. Moreover, occlusion substantially alters spatial configurations by introducing physically barriers, compromising ecological validity and limiting generalizability to non-occluded scenarios. Conversely, peripheral mirrors preserve the original spatial relationships between avatars and targets, allowing conclusions from reflection conditions to generalize to standard non-reflection contexts.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this study, we conducted two experiments adapting the dot-perspective task to compare consistency effect magnitudes between reflection and non-reflection scenarios. This comparison directly tests whether observed effects stem primarily from spontaneous perspective-taking or attentional orienting mechanisms, thereby providing critical evidence for either the implicit mentalizing or submentalizing account. Experiment 2 constituted a direct replication of Experiment 1 with one modification: whereas Experiment 1 intermixed self-perspective and other-perspective trials within blocks, Experiment 2 segregated them into separate blocks to eliminate the cognitive costs associated with frequent perspective switching (Ferguson, Scheepers, \u0026amp; Bard, 2017; Segal, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2 Experiment 1","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.1 Method\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.1.1 Participants\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn a-priori power analysis conducted with G*Power 3.1 indicated that a repeated-measures ANOVA with medium effect size (\u003cem\u003ef\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.25), α\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.05, and power (1 \u0026ndash; β)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.90 required at least 38 participants. We recruited 50 right-handed undergraduates (14 male, 36 female; \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e_age\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;19.38 years, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.45) who were na\u0026iuml;ve to the purpose of the study and reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision. All participants provided written informed consent prior to the experiment and received course credits or 10 RMB upon study completion. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and all protocol and procedures were approved by the University research ethics board.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.1.2 Design and Stimuli\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eA 2 (Scene: Blackboard vs. Mirror) \u0026times; 2 (Perspective: Self vs. Other) \u0026times; 2 (Consistency: Consistent vs. Inconsistent) within-subjects design was implemented.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe experiment was programmed with Python and presented on a 21-inch monitor (1920 \u0026times; 1080 resolution, 60Hz refresh rate) with participants seated 60 cm from the screen. Each trial displayed a visual scene (1000 \u0026times; 600 pixels) featuring a central avatar facing left or right, flanked by desks containing 0\u0026ndash;2 soccer balls, with either vertical blackboards or mirrors positioned laterally (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). In mirror scenarios, reflected images ensured identical visual access to targets for both avatar and participant regardless of orientation. In blackboard scenarios, the avatar\u0026rsquo;s visual access to posterior targets was objectively obstructed. All scene images were rendered using Blender 4.1 software and centrally presented.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.1.3 Procedure\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs depicted in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e, each trial began with a 500-ms fixation cross at screen center, followed by a 1500-ms perspective cue (\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;He\u0026rdquo;). Subsequently, the scene appeared remained until response. Participants judged how many balls they (Self-perspective) or the avatar (Other-perspective) could see according the prior perspective cue. Responses were collected with the right hand on the spacebar (thumb: 0 balls), \u0026ldquo;J\u0026rdquo; key (index finger: 1 ball), and \u0026ldquo;K\u0026rdquo; key (middle finger: 2 balls). This single-hand response design mitigated spatial compatibility effects arising from left/right stimulus\u0026ndash;response mappings. Participants were indicated to respond as quickly and accurately as possible. The experiment comprised 240 trials (30 per condition) with avatar orientation, target locations, and quantities fully counterbalanced. Trial order was randomized; every 80 trials were followed by a 30-s break. Prior to the test phase, participants completed 32 practice trials with accuracy feedback (1000 ms); no feedback was provided during the formal test.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnlike the original paradigm which presented a digit after the cue and required participants to judge whether the upcoming scene matched that digit (Samson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e), we eliminated the digit-display phase to minimize working-memory load and extraneous cognitive demands. To ensure participants understood visual differences between blackboard and mirror scenes, 360\u0026deg; scene rotations were displayed during the instruction phase.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.1.4 Data Processing\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eGiven that mean accuracy rates exceeded 95% across all conditions, our analysis focused on participants' correct Reaction times (RTs). We used the inter-quartile range (IQR) rule to screen RTs for each participant. Trials with RTs below (Q1\u0026ndash;1.5 \u0026times; IQR) or above (Q3\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;1.5 \u0026times; IQR) were discarded as outliers and excluded from analysis. Statistical analyses were performed using the bruceR package (Bao, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) in R version 4.4.2.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.2 Results\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eDescriptive statistics for Experiment 1 are summarized in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e. A 2 (Scene) \u0026times; 2 (Perspective) \u0026times; 2 (Consistency) repeated-measures ANOVA on RTs revealed significant main effects across all factors. For Scene, responses were significantly slower in blackboard conditions than mirror conditions, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;7.89, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.007, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.14. For Perspective, responses from the other perspective were slower than from the self perspective, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;242.98, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.83. For Consistency, consistent trials were faster than inconsistent trials, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;166.20, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.77. The Perspective \u0026times; Consistency interaction was significant, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;82.73, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.63. Simple effects analyses demonstrated that under other-perspective judgments, responses were significantly faster for consistent versus inconsistent trials, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;241.48, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.83, reflecting the classic egocentric interference effect. Similarly, under self-perspective judgments, consistent trials elicited faster responses than inconsistent trials, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;29.36, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.38, indicating an altercentric interference effect, albeit substantially weaker than its egocentric counterpart.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDescriptive statistics for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"8\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c8\" colnum=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExperiment 1(\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;50)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c8\" namest=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eExperiment 2(\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;53)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eScene\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePerspective\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConsistency\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRT (ms)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccuracy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRT (ms)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccuracy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"3\" rowspan=\"4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlackboard\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelf\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e828.55(225.63)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e699.65(102.72)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInconsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e889.93(239.50)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.95(0.07)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e722.10(112.96)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eOther\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e917.24(234.79)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.03)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e948.11(196.13)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.03)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInconsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1080.24 (225.86)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.95(0.07)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1085.03(193.88)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.97(0.05)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"3\" rowspan=\"4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMirror\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelf\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e811.16(204.85)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e712.35(122.23)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInconsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e850.45(235.42)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e731.22(121.51)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eOther\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eConsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e916.32(238.84)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.99(0.02)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e976.81(253.42)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.98(0.07)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInconsistent\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1051.05(269.53)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.96(0.04)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1084.43(228.71)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.97(0.05)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colspan=\"8\" nameend=\"c8\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote\u003c/em\u003e: Values in the table represent mean (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e) and standard deviation (\u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e, in parentheses). RT\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;Reaction time.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCritically, neither the Scene \u0026times; Consistency interaction, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.77, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.058, nor the Scene \u0026times; Perspective interaction, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.07, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.306, nor the three-way interaction reached significance, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.07, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.796. This pattern confirms that both egocentric and altercentric interferences persisted robustly across blackboard and mirror scenarios (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). To quantify these effects, we computed consistency effects as inconsistent minus consistent RTs for each participant. Independent sample \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e-tests showed no reliable difference between scenes either for egocentric interference (blackboard: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;163.01 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;11.82; mirror: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;134.72 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;12.93), \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e(49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.80, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.078, or for altercentric interference (blackboard: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;61.38 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;13.72; mirror: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;39.29 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;13.07), \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e(49)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.14, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.258.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e2.3 Discussion\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eExperiment 1 demonstrated high accuracy rates (\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;95%) across all conditions, confirming participants\u0026rsquo; ability to discriminate between visual scenes. Critically, the implicit mentalizing account predicts that consistency effects should vanish in mirror scenarios where the avatar\u0026rsquo;s visual information perfectly matches the participant\u0026rsquo;s. However, robust egocentric and altercentric interferences persisted undiminished in mirror conditions, paralleling effects in blackboard controls. This suggests that participants' judgments were strongly influenced by the orientation of the avatar: responses slowed down significantly whenever the avatar's orientation was inconsistent with the position of the target, regardless of whether the number of targets visible to the avatar was consistent with that visible to the self. Thus, the results of Experiment 1 support the submentalizing account, which posits that the consistency effect in the dot perspective task is mainly caused by attentional orienting.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne potential limitation of Experiment 1 is that participants switched repeatedly between self- and other-perspective trials within the same block. Prior work shows that such perspective switching, relative to maintaining a single perspective, involves more cognitive efforts and prolongs reaction times (Ferguson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Segal, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). Moreover, presenting both perspectives in the same block may heighten the salience of the avatar, creating an implicit cue that encourages participants to track the avatar\u0026rsquo;s viewpoint even when judging from the self perspective (Martin et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; O\u0026rsquo;Grady et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). To eliminate these confounds, Experiment 2 employed a between-blocks perspective design, thereby eliminating perspective-switching costs and implicit cueing effects and providing a more stringent test of the findings from Experiment 1.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"3 Experiment 2","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.1 Method\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.1.1 Participants\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eFifty-three right-handed undergraduates (8 male, 45 female; \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e_age\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;19.32 years, \u003cem\u003eSD\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.40) were recruited for Experiment 2, who had no prior experience with the task and reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision. All participants provided written informed consent prior to the experiment and received course credits or 10 RMB upon study completion.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.1.2 Design and Procedure\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 2 (Scene: Blackboard vs. Mirror) \u0026times; 2 (Perspective: Self vs. Other) \u0026times; 2 (Consistency: Consistent vs. Inconsistent) within-subjects design was retained, but Perspective was now manipulated between blocks. Half of the participants completed the Self block first, followed by the Other block; the remaining participants received the reverse order. Each block contained 120 trials, yielding the same 240 total trials as in Experiment 1. All other procedural details (stimuli, timing, response mapping, and outlier removal) were identical to Experiment 1.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2 Results\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eDescriptive statistics are also showed in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e. A 2 \u0026times; 2 \u0026times; 2 repeated-measures ANOVA on RTs yielded the following results. The main effect of Scene was not significant, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.42, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.070. The main effect of Perspective was significant, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;283.91, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.85, with responses slower when adopting the other perspective than when adopting the self perspective. The main effect of Consistency was also significant, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;149.08, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.74, such that responses in consistent trials were faster than in inconsistent trials. The Perspective \u0026times; Consistency interaction was significant, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;125.43, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.71. In the other-perspective condition, consistent trials were responded to significantly faster than inconsistent trials (egocentric interference), \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;172.16, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.78. In the self-perspective condition, consistent trials were also responded to faster than inconsistent trials (altercentric interference), \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;18.69, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.001, η2 p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.26, though the effect was substantially smaller than the egocentric interference.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNeither the Scene \u0026times; Consistency interaction, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.28, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.076, nor the Scene \u0026times; Perspective interaction, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.09, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.761,, nor the three-way interaction reached significance, \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e(1, 52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.72, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.105.These outcomes replicate Experiment 1, demonstrating robust egocentric and altercentric interferences in both blackboard and mirror scenes (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e). Direct comparisons of the consistency effect magnitudes (inconsistent\u0026ndash;consistent) revealed no reliable differences between scenes either for egocentric interference (blackboard: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;136.92 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;9.74; mirror: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;107.62 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;13.81), \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e(52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.96, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.056, or for altercentric interference (blackboard: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;22.44 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;5.87; mirror: \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;18.87 ms, \u003cem\u003eSE\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;6.52), \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e(52)\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.45, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;.654.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.3 Discussion\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eExperiment 2 replicated key findings despite eliminating perspective-switching costs and implicit cue effects: consistency effects remained undiminished in mirror scenarios where visual information was equated. This persistence of directional interference despite visual equivalence confirms that responses were primarily governed by attentional orienting triggered by avatar orientation. Consequently, these findings provide further convergent evidence for the submentalizing account, suggesting that the consistency effect in the dot-perspective task arises from domain-general attentional orienting rather than from spontaneous perspective-taking.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4 General Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eSpontaneous perspective-taking has ben regarded as pivotal evidence for an implicit mentalizing system. Nevertheless, the dot-perspective task\u0026mdash;the predominant paradigm for assessing this phenomenon\u0026mdash;has generated substantial theoretical and methodological controversy (Cole \u0026amp; Millett, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Gardner \u0026amp; Thorn, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Heyes, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). Building on existing variants, the present study introduced an ingenious application of mirror-reflection principles to contrast scenarios with versus without reflective access. This design advances the critical aim of elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying consistency effects in the dot-perspective task. Convergent results from two experiments demonstrate that response speeds were primarily modulated by directional consistency between avatar orientation and target location. Crucially, even in mirror-reflection scenarios\u0026mdash;where visual information remained identical for both the avatar and participant\u0026mdash;robust consistency effects persisted at magnitudes comparable to non-reflection conditions. These findings substantiate the dominant role of attentional orienting and lend stronger empirical support to the submentalizing hypothesis.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the dot-perspective task, so-called spontaneous perspective-taking primarily refers to the influence of irrelevant other\u0026rsquo;s perspectives on self-judgment processes. Thus, past debates have centered on the mechanism underlying the consistency effect in the self-perspective condition, namely, altercentric interference. Researchers have mainly employed two approaches\u0026mdash;cue substitution and visual occlusion\u0026mdash;to test alternative explanations based on attentional orienting, yet many studies have reached conflicting conclusions. For instance, studies using occlusion to manipulate the avatar\u0026rsquo;s visual access have found that altercentric interference disappears when the avatar cannot see the target (e.g., Baker et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Furlanetto et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). These findings have been interpreted as evidence that participants spontaneously represent another\u0026rsquo;s visual content, supporting the implicit mentalizing account. However, this conclusion should be treated with caution. Research in gaze-cueing field shows that visual accessibility modulates the magnitude of gaze-cueing effects (Teufel et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, manipulating occlusion in the dot perspective task might weaken the attentional orienting effect of the avatar\u0026rsquo;s orientation but not the spontaneous perspective-taking process. Other studies have found that altercentric interference persists even when the avatar cannot see the targets (Conway et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Wilson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e), leading to the conclusion that the effect is due to attentional orienting, thus supporting the submentalizing account. However, considering that participants might still engage in perspective-taking or intention attribution even when the avatar is occluded (Quesque et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), the implicit mentalizing explanation cannot be ruled out. The mirror-reflection paradigm employed in the present study neatly resolves these issues. On the one hand, there is no visual occlusion in either the reflection or non-reflection scenes, so the attentional orienting effect of the avatar\u0026rsquo;s orientation is comparable. On the other hand, in the reflection scene, participants are aware that the avatar can \u0026ldquo;see\u0026rdquo; all the targets via the mirror, which is consistent with their own visual content. If participants were to represent the avatar\u0026rsquo;s perspective in this situation, no consistency effect should emerge. However, the results showed that the magnitude of altercentric interference was the same in both reflection and non-reflection scenes, suggesting that the effect is more likely to reflect the influence of the avatar\u0026rsquo;s orientation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlthough the study primarily focused on the debate regarding spontaneous perspective-taking, the observation egocentric interference in both reflection and non-reflection scenes during other-perspective trials also serves as compelling evidence for the dominant role of attentional orienting in the dot-perspective task. From a mentalizing or perspective-taking standpoint, egocentric interference is typically viewed as the cognitive cost of inhibiting one\u0026rsquo;s own representation (e.g., when \u0026ldquo;I see 2\u0026rdquo; but the task requires reporting \u0026ldquo;he sees 1\u0026rdquo;). In the reflection scene, since the avatar sees the same content as the self, there is no perspective conflict, and thus no need for self-perspective inhibition. Theoretically, no reaction time difference should emerge, and participants might even adopt the strategy of judging from the self-perspective whenever a mirror appears, ignoring the avatar\u0026rsquo;s orientation. However, both experiments observed a directional consistency effect of the comparable magnitude as in the non-reflection scenes. This suggests that, even under explicit perspective-taking demands, the consistency effect is better explained by attentional orienting. In this light, labeling the consistency effect in the other-perspective condition as \u0026ldquo;egocentric interference\u0026rdquo; seems inappropriate.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe smaller consistency effect in the self-perspective condition compared to the other-perspective condition has traditionally been explained by the mentalizing account as reflecting a higher priority for egocentric processing (Samson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Todd \u0026amp; Tamir, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Specifically, it is assumed that inhibiting spontaneous representations of another\u0026rsquo;s perspective when representing one\u0026rsquo;s own perspective is less demanding than inhibiting one\u0026rsquo;s own perspective when representing another\u0026rsquo;s perspective. However, from the perspective of the submentalizing account, this difference is more likely due to the influence of perspective cues on attentional orienting effects. The presence of a perspective cue before the scene presentation, such as the word \u0026ldquo;he\u0026rdquo; preceding other-perspective trials, is stored in working memory and creates a processing expectation that may enhance participants\u0026rsquo; subsequent attention to the avatar (Summerfield \u0026amp; Egner, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). In contrast, in the self-perspective condition, attention is primarily captured by the avatar in a bottom-up manner, and the prior perspective cue (\u0026ldquo;you\u0026rdquo;) may actually inhibit participants\u0026rsquo; automatic attention to the avatar, thereby reducing the overall attentional orienting effect.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe present study also has important practical implications. Many researchers have used the dot-perspective task as a tool to assess implicit theory-of-mind abilities in special populations. For instance, some studies have employed the dot-perspective task to examine the performance of psychopathic offenders, finding that this group did not exhibit significant altercentric interference. As a result, it has been concluded that they lack a spontaneous tendency to represent others\u0026rsquo; perspectives or that their implicit theory-of-mind system is impaired (Draytona et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). Similar assessments have been conducted on individuals with schizophrenia (Kronbichler et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), autism (Doi et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Tei et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), and narcissistic personality (Bukowski \u0026amp; Samson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). The findings of the current study cast doubt on the conclusions of the aforementioned research. For example, the performance characteristics of individuals with autism in this task may be due to abnormalities in attention mechanisms rather than deficits in implicit theory of mind. Using it as a clinical diagnostic tool may pose a significant risk of misuse. Other studies have used this task to investigate the impact of social and emotional factors such as gender (Weidema et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), emotion (Todd \u0026amp; Simpson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e), and social identity (Simpson \u0026amp; Todd, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) on implicit theory of mind, and the conclusions of these studies should also be treated with caution.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinally, the present study still has certain limitations. In terms of experimental design, the mirrors and blackboards used in the reflection and non-reflection scenes, respectively, are distinctive stimuli. Participants inevitably undergo a psychological process of visual discrimination when making judgments, which may have a potential impact on the actual responses. Future studies could replace the blackboard with a visually similar but non-reflective stimulus, such as glass. Additionally, the experimental materials were virtual modeled scenes, and the differences between the two types of scenes were mainly demonstrated through animations and text prompts beforehand, rather than through real experiences, which may have suppressed spontaneous mentalizing processes. Future studies could employ a combination of real-person filmed scenes and live demonstrations. Moreover, due to practical constraints, the present study had a significant gender imbalance in the sample distribution. Future studies could conduct replications with larger samples that are gender-balanced. Lastly, the present study focused on the spontaneous nature of Level-1 perspective-taking (\u0026ldquo;whether the object is visible\u0026rdquo;), and future studies could draw on the reflection paradigm of this study to examine spontaneous Level-2 perspective-taking (\u0026ldquo;what the object looks like\u0026rdquo;) as found in previous research.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"5 Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThrough two experiments, the present study found that the dot-perspective task exhibited comparable directional consistency effects in both reflection and non-reflection scenes. This indicates that participants\u0026rsquo; judgment processes were primarily influenced by spatial attentional cues, rather than by the alignment of self- and other-perspective visual content. The results strongly support the submentalizing account and refute the implicit mentalizing account. Specifically, the consistency effect in the dot-perspective task primarily reflects domain-general attentional orienting effects, rather than spontaneous perspective-taking.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor contributions:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eConceptualization: Zhou Bingping, Wang Wei; Methodology: Zhou Bingping, Yang Ke; Formal analysis and investigation: Zhou Bingping, Wang Wei; Writing - original draft preparation: Wang Wei, Zhou Bingping; Writing - review and editing:Shangguan Chenyu, Sun Zhongqiang; Funding acquisition: Zhou Bingping, Shangguan Chenyu, Sun Zhongqiang; Supervision: Zhou Bingping, Sun Zhongqiang.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThis work was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LQ23C090002), the Zhejiang Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project (25NDJC108YB), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62407022).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData availability:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eData and\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eCode are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/7fxjk/).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interests:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThere authors declare no conflicts of interest.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics approval:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eThe study protocols were approved by the Institutional Review Board, School of Education, Wenzhou University (IRB Number: WZUED20250601).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent to participate:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eInformed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.\u003c/p\u003e\n"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eApperly, I. 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The self-consistency effect seen on the Dot Perspective Task is a product of domain-general attention cueing, not automatic perspective taking. \u003cem\u003eCognition\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e224\u003c/em\u003e, 105056. \u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWeidema, A., Hollarek, M., Sijtsma, H., Lee, N. C., Walsh, R. J., Buuren, M. van, \u0026amp; Krabbendam, L. (2023). Increased interference from conflicting perspectives and gender differences: A longitudinal study during adolescence. \u003cem\u003eJournal of Experimental Child Psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e235\u003c/em\u003e, 105717. \u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWilson, C. J., Soranzo, A., \u0026amp; Bertamini, M. (2017). Attentional interference is modulated by salience not sentience. \u003cem\u003eActa Psychologica\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e178\u003c/em\u003e, 56\u0026ndash;65.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"psychological-research","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"prpf","sideBox":"Learn more about [Psychological Research](http://link.springer.com/journal/426)","snPcode":"426","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/426/3","title":"Psychological Research","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"spontaneous perspective-taking, dot-perspective task, attentional orienting, implicit mentalizing, submentalizing","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7647599/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7647599/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eTo establish whether humans possess a rapid implicit mentalizing system enabling efficient social interaction, researchers have extensively investigated spontaneous visual perspective taking using paradigms such as the dot perspective task. Yet the validity of this task has been challenged by the submentalizing account, which attributes the observed consistency effects to domain-general attentional orienting. We devised a novel mirror-reflection paradigm that equates visual information between participant and avatar while preserving the avatar\u0026rsquo;s directional cue to isolate the contributions of directional attention versus visual content alignment. In two within-subjects experiments (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;50 and 53), participants judged the number of targets visible either to themselves or to an avatar whose body orientation was consistent or inconsistent with target location. Crucially, mirrors ensured that the avatar always shared the participant\u0026rsquo;s visual access; in control (blackboard) scenes, visual access could differ. Robust egocentric and altercentric interference emerged and, critically, their magnitudes were identical across mirrored and non-mirrored scenes. A blocked-perspective replication (Experiment 2) ruled out perspective-switching costs as an alternative explanation. These findings demonstrate that directional attentional orienting, rather than spontaneous perspective-taking, underlies performance in the dot-perspective task, providing decisive evidence for the submentalizing account and cautioning against the use of the task as a pure index of implicit theory of mind.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Attentional Orienting Rather Than Spontaneous Perspective Taking: A Mirror-Reflection Dot Perspective Task Reveals Submentalizing","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-10-01 17:39:44","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7647599/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2025-10-09T12:36:41+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-10-09T10:07:59+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2025-10-02T16:05:43+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"303882501524496923508909667437482948947","date":"2025-09-21T16:13:25+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"230265483772410465420966631327931741463","date":"2025-09-19T13:36:26+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2025-09-19T05:58:28+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-09-18T16:27:20+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-09-18T12:31:01+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Psychological Research","date":"2025-09-18T09:05:19+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"psychological-research","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"prpf","sideBox":"Learn more about [Psychological Research](http://link.springer.com/journal/426)","snPcode":"426","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/426/3","title":"Psychological Research","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"a8c5e1c6-de7a-4108-837d-b0eaecdb5216","owner":[],"postedDate":"October 1st, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-12-15T16:08:15+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-7647599","link":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02219-9","journal":{"identity":"psychological-research","isVorOnly":false,"title":"Psychological Research"},"publishedOn":"2025-12-08 15:57:23","publishedOnDateReadable":"December 8th, 2025"},"versionCreatedAt":"2025-10-01 17:39:44","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1007/s00426-025-02219-9","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02219-9","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7647599","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7647599","identity":"rs-7647599","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}