Psychological essentialist reasoning and perspective taking during reading: A donkey is not a zebra, but a plate can be a clock

Abstract

In an eyetracking study, we examined whether readers use psychological essentialist reasoning and perspective taking online. Stories were presented in which an animal or an artifact was transformed into another animal (e.g., a donkey into a zebra) or artifact (e.g., a plate into a clock). According to psychological essentialism, the essence of the animal did not change in these stories, while the transformed artifact would be thought to have changed categories. We found evidence that readers use this kind of reasoning online: When reference was made to the transformed animal, the nontransformed term ("donkey") was preferred, but the opposite held for the transformed artifact ("clock" was read faster than "plate").

Privileged versus shared knowledge about object identity in real-time referential processing

“…Thus, it is possible that the patterns observed in the current study reflect a robust essentialist bias in the way that mental representations for visually perceived objects are constructed and maintained in working memory. This explanation is consistent with data reported by Frisson and Wakefield (2012) from a study of narrative comprehension. In their study, participants read a series of stories in which animals were superficially transformed into other animals (e.g., a donkey was transformed into a zebra by painting stripes on its back).…”

“…Although this approach has provided an important methodological template for numerous studies, including work on cognitive development and individual differences in perspective taking (e.g., Hanna et al, 2003;Keysar et al, 2000;Nadig & Sedivy, 2002), it provides only one means to explore the coordination of shared vs. privileged knowledge. In fact, as recognized by theory of mind researchers (e.g., Apperly, 2011;Apperly and Butterfill;2009;Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Lombardo, 2013;Low & Watts, 2013) and psycholinguists alike (e.g., Frisson & Wakefield, 2012;Hanna et al, 2003;Keysar et al, 2003;Schober, 1998) knowledge discrepancies often involve other kinds of perspective differences that go beyond awareness of the existence of referents. For example, Schober (1998) outlined a number of other factors that conversational partners need to consider to successfully coordinate their perspectives, including time, place, identity, and conversational agenda, among other things.…”