studies on visual perspective-taking and visual working memory
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
University of Birmingham
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2011
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
Ph.D.
Body granting the degree
University of Birmingham
Text preceding or following the note
2011
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Ten experiments examined the way that automatic processing of the visual perspectives and eye gaze of others affects adults' perception and encoding of the social world. I investigated the amount of flexibility that automatic visual perspective computation accommodates. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 demonstrate that automatic visual perspective-computation shows some flexibility for enumerating and representing perspective contents. Experiments 4 and 5 further indicate that automatic visual perspective-taking allows selection of relevant perspective information. I also examined whether observing others' eye gaze affects adults' visual working memory encoding. Experiments 6, 7, and 8 indicate that agents' object-oriented gaze does not lead to more efficient encoding of agent and object information. Experiments 9 and 10 demonstrate that observing others' participant-oriented gaze disrupts visual working memory encoding. I argue that although adults have minimal conscious control over the activation of visual perspective-computation and processing of participantoriented gaze, the efficient mindreading system shows some flexibility.