Training self-other distinction facilitates perspective taking in young children

People sometimes commit ‘egocentric errors’, failing to ignore their own perspective when interpreting others’ communication. Training imitation-inhibition, when participants perform the opposite action from another person, facilitates subsequent perspective-taking in adults. This study tested whether imitation-inhibition training also facilitates perspective-taking in 3-6-year-olds, an age where egocentric perspective may be particularly influential. Children participated in a 10-minute imitation-inhibition, imitation, or non-social-inhibition training (white, n=25 per condition, 33 female, period: 2018-2021), then the communicative-perspective-taking Director task. Training had a significant effect (F(2, 71) = 3.316, p = .042, η2 = .085): on critical trials the imitation-inhibition-group selected the correct object more often than the other groups. Imitation-inhibition training specifically enhanced the perspective-taking process possibly by highlighting the distinction between self and other.