心智化社会认知观的演变及发展——来自潜心智化的思考

社会认知的机制一直存在心智化与具身认知观点的争论。前者认为社会认知是对心理状态的推测,而后者则认为社会认知是具身实践活动。虽然,心智化研究者认为具身认知有关灵长类动物和婴儿的社会认知的解释可以兼容于内隐心智化,但内隐心智化在解释社会互动时仍然存在间接性的问题。近期,潜心智化理论旨在挑战上述立场中有关社会认知先天论的预设,该理论将个体的潜心智化视为内隐心智化的替代,通过检验与分析相关研究的构想效度,强调社会认知是从非社会性的一般认知功能中衍生而来的,这种立场在社会认知的领域特殊性与非社会认知的领域一般性之间建立起了纽带,从而挑战了心智化与具身认知的争论。未来研究应设计更为严谨的心智化研究方法并对其进行方法学验证,借助先进的技术手段,尝试在神经科学层面探索一般认知功能与社会认知的关系。     

观点采择是否一定促进内隐宽恕?——受害者对伤害动机认同的调节作用

以往研究多认为观点采择可有效促进宽恕,近期研究则开始关注观点采择诱发宽恕等亲社会行为的边界条件。结合“换位体验”和内隐态度测量范式,本研究考察了受害者对伤害动机的认同在被动和自发观点采择影响内隐宽恕过程中的调节作用。实验1发现当人际伤害中存在人们无法认同的恶意不道德动机时,被动和自发观点采择都抑制了受害者对施害者的内隐宽恕且后者的抑制效应更显著。实验2则进一步操纵了不同类型受害者对施害者伤害动机的认同差异,低认同组与实验1结果相同,即被动和自发观点采择中都抑制了内隐宽恕且后者的抑制效应更显著,但高认同组在两种观点采择中都促进了内隐宽恕且二者的促进效应无显著差异。本研究揭示了伤害动机认同在不同类型观点采择影响内隐宽恕过程中起到的调节作用,进一步丰富了对观点采择和宽恕间复杂关系的认识。     

观点采择在内隐情绪加工中的调节作用

观点采择对人们加工情绪具有明显的影响。已有研究发现人们对负性情绪信息存在加工偏向, 且观点采择对外显情绪的加工具有调节作用。但观点采择如何影响内隐情绪的加工尚不清楚。为了考察观点采择对内隐情绪加工的影响, 当前研究要求被试分别通过自我视角和他人视角完成情绪图片(中性图片和负性图片)的形状辨别任务, 同时记录其脑电活动。成分分析的结果显示, 与他人视角条件相比, 自我视角条件下加工负性信息引发了更大的额部及中央的N200 (180~220 ms)和顶区的LPC (267~567 ms)波幅。相位锁定的时频分析结果显示, 刺激呈现后0 ms 至300 ms时间窗口内, 在自我视角条件下, 负性信息的加工引发了显著增大的theta (4~8 Hz)节律的能量活动。成分分析和时频分析的结果均表明, 自我视角条件对负性信息加工具有启动效应, 他人视角条件则抑制了对负性信息的加工, 说明观点采择对内隐情绪加工具有调节作用, 反映了人不仅能够区分环境中潜在的危险信息, 而且能通过观点采择区分自我与他人。     

心智游移：现象、机制及意义

心智游移是一种常见的非自主内源性意识体验, 是意识流的重要组成部分, 它的存在提示非感官意识在人类意识经验中的重要地位, 以及持续进行的无意识加工对个体生存可能具有的重要意义, 对心智游移的研究是心理学和认知神经科学领域内新兴的热点课题。本文重点回顾了关于心智游移的体验内容、与情绪的关系及其相关神经活动方面的研究成果, 在此基础上探讨了心智游移的发生机制及适应性功能。文章最后总结了目前心智游移研究中存在的定义不清、研究策略和方法过于局限以及研究内容上存在的问题, 并提出了该领域未来的研究方向以及应用价值。     

观点采择对内隐刻板印象的影响研究

该研究对大学生在观点采择和控制两种条件下,性别-职业刻板印象的内隐联想测验结果的对比进行实验。研究表明：观点采择策略的干预效果明显,刻板印象的内隐效应在明显地减弱;在性别-职业刻板印象上存在内隐效应,而且没有性别差异,无论在正常情况下还是受到观点采择策略的干预,男女被试均表现出同等的情形,说明内隐刻板印象具有一定的适应性,在内隐的和无意识的水平上观点采择无法完全消除刻板印象;实验证明研究设计的性别-职业刻板印象的IAT纸笔测验版本是可行的。     

自发性观点采择对宽恕不同程度人际伤害的影响

设计并采用“换位体验”的社会互动范式,结合自陈报告法和情感错误归因程序的内隐态度研究范式,通过2个实验比较了面对不同程度的人际伤害,自发性观点采择和语言劝说这两种不同的人际伤害消解方式分别对外显和内隐宽恕的影响。结果发现：无论面对何种程度的人际伤害,（1）与自发性观点采择相比,语言劝说可以有效的促进外显宽恕;（2）自发性观点采择可以有效减少负面内隐态度,促进内隐宽恕,而语言劝说会提高负面内隐态度,阻碍内隐宽恕。该研究结果说明不同人际伤害消解方式对内隐和外显宽恕的影响是不同的,同时也证明了观点采择可以在人际互动中自发产生,并且会对人际关系产生隐性影响。     

团队反思训练对团队双元发展的影响及机制

本文基于“差异化-整合化”框架,探讨团队反思训练对团队双元增长的影响(研究1)以及元知识共享与观点采择的中介作用(研究2)。本研究通过对360名新大学生组成的90个课程团队、进行为期3个月(研究1)和656名员工组成的74个创新团队、进行为期1年的追踪调查(研究2),分别构建潜变量增长模型和潜在差分模型对数据进行分析。结果发现：(1)团队反思训练正向影响团队双元增长趋势;(2)元知识共享与观点采择中介了团队反思训练对团队双元增长趋势的正向影响,即当团队接受反思训练后,团队元知识共享与观点采择水平提高,进而使团队双元水平上升。研究支持团队反思在促进团队适应能力、提高双元水平的观点,并在此基础上进一步细化其内在机制。同时,研究对揭示团队双元的动态性与提升复杂性具有积极作用。     

内隐操作绩效的加工分离:四分模型及其研究

一般认为,社会认知过程的内隐测量反映了不受个体控制的自动化加工.本文简要介绍了新近由Sherman等人提出的内隐操作绩效的四分模型及其相关研究.该模型认为,社会认知过程的内隐测量效应并非单纯自动加工的结果,而是多种加工成分的综合表达,这些成分包括联想的自动激活,确定正确反应的能力,对被自动激活联想的成功克服以及反应偏向的影响.该模型为重新认识内隐加工效应的机制提供了新的概念框架和分析技术,被广泛应用于基于内隐测量的社会认知研究领域,并引起该领域研究者的广泛关注.     

语言加工过程中的观点采择及其认知机制

观点采择是指个体从他人或他人所处情境出发, 想象或推测他人观点与态度的心理过程。对相关研究综述发现: (1)观点采择是否存在自我中心偏向依然存在争论; (2)观点采择自我中心偏向不是始终存在的, 其原因可能是个体受到时间压力和特定类型任务的要求; (3)他人存在影响观点采择自我中心偏向, 并且这种影响是自动化的, 不受任务类型的影响; (4)观点采择的认知机制主要包括交互对齐、记忆提取和概率计算。未来研究需要: (1)整合已实现的计算模型; (2)进一步探究观点采择能力与心理理论的关系; (3)探究观点采择中私有信息的作用; (4)提高观点采择研究的生态效度; (5)采用不同的技术手段进行汇聚性验证。     

心智游移的研究：理论、方法及进展

心智游移普遍存在于个体的意识体验中,主要指自发产生的、与当前外界环境无关的思维加工。目前,有关心智游移的理论在其与执行控制的关系上存在争议,主要有心智游移的执行控制理论、控制失败假说和全局可用性假说等。当前的研究主要基于口头报告,并辅以问卷和量表,一些客观指标和认知神经科学的方法也正尝试着对它进行探究。采用这些方法,心智游移的研究已取得了很大的进展。在行为水平上,相关研究探讨了它的时间属性、与元意识的关系、不同因素对它的作用以及它对认知加工的影响等;在认知神经水平上,默认网络与心智游移的关系备受关注,对心智游移时脑电成分的研究也有助于对其机制的了解。未来的研究在心智游移的产生机制、功能和研究方法上可以有进一步的发展。     

Eye tracking reveals the cost of switching between self and other perspectives in a visual perspective-taking task

Previous studies have shown that while people can rapidly and accurately compute their own and other people’s visual perspectives, they experience difficulty ignoring the irrelevant perspective when the two perspectives differ. We used the “avatar” perspective-taking task to examine the mechanisms that underlie these egocentric (i.e., interference from their own perspective) and altercentric (i.e., interference from the other person’s perspective) tendencies. Participants were eye-tracked as they verified the number of discs in a visual scene according to either their own or an on-screen avatar’s perspective. Crucially in some trials the two perspectives were inconsistent (i.e., each saw a different number of discs), while in others they were consistent. To examine the effect of perspective switching, performance was compared for trials that were preceded with the same versus a different perspective cue. We found that altercentric interference can be reduced or eliminated when participants stick with their own perspective across consecutive trials. Our eye-tracking analyses revealed distinct fixation patterns for self and other perspective taking, suggesting that consistency effects in this paradigm are driven by implicit mentalizing of what others can see, and not automatic directional cues from the avatar.     

When focusing on differences leads to similar perspectives

The current research investigated whether mind-sets and contexts that afford a focus on self-other differences can facilitate perceptual and conceptual forms of perspective taking. Supporting this hypothesis, results showed that directly priming a difference mind-set made perceivers more likely to spontaneously adopt other people's visual perspectives (Experiment 1) and less likely to overimpute their own privileged knowledge to others (Experiments 2 and 3). Given that intergroup encounters typically evoke a difference mind-set, we also explored the possibility that such contexts might help perceivers to step outside their own perspectives. As predicted, perceivers were less "cursed" by their own privileged knowledge when mentalizing about out-group targets than when mentalizing about in-group targets (Experiment 4) and communicated more effectively with interaction partners whose minimal-group membership differed from their own (Experiment 5). Overall, acknowledging self-other differences allowed perceivers to look beyond the limits of their own perspectives and thereby provided an efficacious route to intuiting other people's minds.     

The handedness of imagined bodies in action and the role of perspective taking

Past research at the nexus of motor control and perception investigated the role of perspective taking in many behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Some investigators addressed the issue of one's own vs. others' action imagination, but the possible effects of a front or a back view in imagining others' actions have so far been neglected. We report two 'single trial' experiments in which a total of 640 participants were asked to imagine a person performing a manual action - either in a front or in a back view - and then to indicate the hand used by the imagined person during movement execution. In such a task, we assume the existence of two distinct biases: a perceptual-mnemonic bias due to subjects' visual experience of others' actions, encouraging them to imagine right-handed movements, and a motor bias due to subjects' experience of self-made actions, encouraging them to imagine movements performed with the same hand as their dominant hand. We hypothesized that a greater involvement of motor representations in the back view compared to the front view could result in an increased correspondence between one's own manual preference and the hand used by the imagined agent in the former condition. The results of both experiments were consistent with this hypothesis, suggesting that while imagining others' actions we employ motor simulations in different degrees according to the perspective adopted.     

The Social Nature of Perception and Action

ABSTRACT— Humans engage in a wide range of social activities. Previous research has focused on the role of higher cognitive functions, such as mentalizing (the ability to infer others' mental states) and language processing, in social exchange. This article reviews recent studies on action perception and joint action suggesting that basic perception–action links are crucial for many social interactions. Mapping perceived actions to one's own action repertoire enables direct understanding of others' actions and supports action identification. Joint action relies on shared action representations and involves modeling of others' performance in relation to one's own. Taking the social nature of perception and action seriously not only contributes to the understanding of dedicated social processes but has the potential to create a new perspective on the individual mind and brain.     

Perspective taking combats automatic expressions of racial bias

Five experiments investigated the hypothesis that perspective taking--actively contemplating others' psychological experiences--attenuates automatic expressions of racial bias. Across the first 3 experiments, participants who adopted the perspective of a Black target in an initial context subsequently exhibited more positive automatic interracial evaluations, with changes in automatic evaluations mediating the effect of perspective taking on more deliberate interracial evaluations. Furthermore, unlike other bias-reduction strategies, the interracial positivity resulting from perspective taking was accompanied by increased salience of racial inequalities (Experiment 3). Perspective taking also produced stronger approach-oriented action tendencies toward Blacks (but not Whites; Experiment 4). A final experiment revealed that face-to-face interactions with perspective takers were rated more positively by Black interaction partners than were interactions with nonperspective takers--a relationship that was mediated by perspective takers' increased approach-oriented nonverbal behaviors (as rated by objective, third-party observers). These findings indicate that perspective taking can combat automatic expressions of racial biases without simultaneously decreasing sensitivity to ongoing racial disparities.     

Eye movements reveal sustained implicit processing of others' mental states

The ability to attribute mental states to others is crucial for social competency. To assess mentalizing abilities, in false-belief tasks participants attempt to identify an actor's belief about an object's location as opposed to the object's actual location. Passing this test on explicit measures is typically achieved by 4 years of age, but recent eye movement studies reveal registration of others' beliefs by 7 to 15 months. Consequently, a 2-path mentalizing system has been proposed, consisting of a late developing, cognitively demanding component and an early developing, implicit/automatic component. To date, investigations on the implicit system have been based on single-trial experiments only or have not examined how it operates across time. In addition, no study has examined the extent to which participants are conscious of the belief states of others during these tasks. Thus, the existence of a distinct implicit mentalizing system is yet to be demonstrated definitively. Here we show that adults engaged in a primary unrelated task display eye movement patterns consistent with mental state attributions across a sustained temporal period. Debriefing supported the hypothesis that this mentalizing was implicit. It appears there indeed exists a distinct implicit mental state attribution system.     

视觉观点采择中自我中心性偏差的抑制和归因之争

自我中心性偏差是社交失败的重要原因, 但其产生机制还存在争议。以往研究存在抑制性选择模型与流利性错误归因两种理论观点：前者认为对自身观点的抑制失败会导致自我中心性偏差; 后者则认为错误地选择自身更为流畅的信息会导致自我中心性偏差。为整合上述争论, 提出抑制-归因协同作用模型, 认为抑制和归因两种加工或可共同导致自我中心性偏差。未来研究应借助精巧的研究范式和特殊被试群体, 进一步验证该模型。     

Selling behaviours and sales performance: the moderating and mediating effects of interpersonal mentalizing

A random sample of independent insurance agents was surveyed to explore the relationships among learned behaviours, such as, adaptive selling and customer orientation and personal dispositions, such as, interpersonal mentalizing in predicting sales performance. The primary focus of this research was to reexamine salespeople's theory of mind in a broader theoretical base of human abilities. The results confirmed that the dimensions of interpersonal mentalizing, such as, taking a bird's-eye view, shaping the interaction by creating a positive ambience, detecting nonverbal cues and rapport building have different roles for the effectiveness of selling behaviours. While taking a bird's-eye view was a moderator, creating a positive ambience was a mediator of the relationship between selling behaviours and performance. Furthermore, salespeople's ability to build rapport improved sales performance only when they were able to detect nonverbal cues from customers. Taken together, these findings shed light on the complementary role of autonomous abilities of salespeople in improving the productivity of their learned selling behaviours. Several managerial implications were derived from the findings.     

An islet of social ability in Asperger Syndrome: judging social attributes from faces

We asked adults with Asperger Syndrome to judge pictorial stimuli in terms of certain social stereotypes to evaluate to what extent they have access to this type of social knowledge. Sixteen adults with Asperger Syndrome and 24 controls, matched for age and intelligence, were presented with sets of faces, bodies and objects, which had to be rated on a 7-point scale in terms of trustworthiness, attractiveness, social status, and age, or, in the case of objects, price. Despite impaired performance on two important aspects of social cognition (second-order mentalizing and face recognition) the social judgements of the individuals with Asperger Syndrome were just as competent and consistent as those of their matched controls, with only one exception: there was a trend for them to be less able to judge the attractiveness of faces if they were the same sex. We explain this difference in terms of a weakness in mentalizing, specifically the ability to take a different point of view: While all other stereotypic attributions could be made from an egocentric point of view, judging the attractiveness of faces of one's own sex requires taking the perspective of someone of the opposite sex, a challenge for people with mentalizing problems. We conclude that individuals with Asperger Syndrome show preserved aspects of social knowledge, as revealed in the attribution of stereotypes to pictures of people. These findings suggest that there are dissociable subcomponents to social cognition and that not all of these are compromised in Asperger Syndrome.