title: Taking someone else's spatial perspective: Natural stance or effortful decentring?
abstract: When perceiving stimuli, self-centred and decentred perspectives can be adopted. In the present study, we investigate whether perceivers have a natural perspective that constrains their spatial perception, with some people perceiving better with self-centred than decentred perspectives and vice versa for other people. We used a recognition task of tactile ambiguous letters (b, d, p, and q) presented on the stomach, for which three perspectives can be adopted (trunk-centred, head-centred, and decentred). At first, the participants were free to adopt any perspective they wanted. Then, either the same or a different perspective was imposed on them. Without constraints, 80% of the participants adopted a self-centred perspective (50% trunk-centred, 30% head-centred) and 20% a decentred one. The perspective adopted freely appears to be natural as recognition performance decreases with a different perspective and returns to its previous high level with the same perspective. Thus, to perceive space, some perceivers adopt naturally a perspective centred on themselves whereas others take naturally others' perspective.
authors.affiliation: Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, CNRS UMR 7722, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France; Institut Jean Nicod (ENS - EHESS - CNRS), Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Paris, France. Electronic address: arnold@isir.upmc.fr.
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, Crossmodal Research Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Spence
authors.affiliation: Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, CNRS UMR 7722, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Malika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Auvray
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Individual differences; Perspective taking; Sense of self; Tactile perception; Visuo-spatial abilities