title: Losing oneself upon placement in another's position: the influence of perspective on self-referential processing.
abstract: Self-referential processing is considered to be an essential index for exploring self-consciousness. However, whether perspective is the determining factor of the self-reference effect (SRE), which is accompanied by self-referential processing, has not been established. The present study aims to address this issue by using a self-reference paradigm, in which the participants perform a self-reference task while adopting different perspectives. Our results showed that trait words presented with the self in the first-person perspective (1PP) were better remembered compared to trait words presented with others. Interestingly, these SREs were decreased and even reversed in the third-person perspective. When the participants viewed themselves based on their friend's perspective, no significant difference was found between the recognition performances of self- and friend-trait words. Moreover, an improved "remember" recognition performance of friend-trait words was found. These findings support the assumption that the 1PP is a necessary factor for self-advantage in self-referential processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Tianyang
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China; Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing, China. Electronic address: wuyh@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yanhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012647:Self-Assessment; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Perspective; Self-reference effect; Self-referential processing