Computational modelling of embodied visual perspective-taking
File(s)
Supporting information
Accepted version
Author(s)
Fischer, Tobias
Demiris, Yiannis
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Humans are inherently social beings that benefit from their perceptional capability to embody another point of view, typically referred to as perspective-taking. Perspective-taking is an essential feature in our daily interactions and is pivotal for human development. However, much remains unknown about the precise mechanisms that underlie perspective-taking. Here we show that formalizing perspective-taking in a computational model can detail the embodied mechanisms employed by humans in perspective-taking. The model's main building block is a set of action primitives that are passed through a forward model. The model employs a process that selects a subset of action primitives to be passed through the forward model to reduce the response time. The model demonstrates results that mimic those captured by human data, including (i) response times differences caused by the angular disparity between the perspective-taker and the other agent, (ii) the impact of task-irrelevant body posture variations in perspective-taking, and (iii) differences in the perspective-taking strategy between individuals. Our results provide support for the hypothesis that perspective-taking is a mental simulation of the physical movements that are required to match another person's visual viewpoint. Furthermore, the model provides several testable predictions, including the prediction that forced early responses lead to an egocentric bias and that a selection process introduces dependencies between two consecutive trials. Our results indicate potential links between perspective-taking and other essential perceptional and cognitive mechanisms, such as active vision and autobiographical memories.
Date Issued
2020-12-01
Date Acceptance
2019-09-28
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 2020, 12 (4), pp.723-732
ISSN
2379-8920
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Start Page
723
End Page
732
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Volume
12
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Royal Academy Of Engineering
Identifier
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8884119
Grant Number
612139
CiET1718\46
Subjects
Visual Perception
Perspective-taking
Forward Models
Computational Modeling
Social Psychology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-10-28