Evidence for a Weak but Reliable Processing Advantage for False Beliefs Over Similar Nonmental States in Adults.

The ability to understand the mental states of others has sometimes been attributed to a domain-specific mechanism which privileges the processing of these states over similar but nonmental representations. If correct, then others' beliefs should be processed more efficiently than similar information contained within nonmental states. We tested this by examining whether adults would be faster to process others' false beliefs than equivalent "false" photos.

Teleporting into walls? The irrelevance of the physical world in embodied perspective-taking.

Embodied theories of Level 2 visual perspective-taking usually assume that we imagine ourselves in other real-world locations to take perspectives. We tested this assertion by giving participants an embodied perspective-taking task in which they were instructed to make manual responses based on imagined perspectives. Importantly, on half of the trials, the location of the alternative perspective was not physically possible (i.

It's Not You, It's Me: A Review of Individual Differences in Visuospatial Perspective Taking.

Visuospatial perspective taking (VSPT) concerns the ability to understand something about the visual relationship between an agent or observation point on the one hand and a target or scene on the other. Despite its importance to a wide variety of other abilities, from communication to navigation, and decades of research, there is as yet no theory of VSPT. Indeed, the heterogeneity of results from different (and sometimes the same) VSPT tasks point to a complex picture suggestive of multiple VSPT strategies, individual differences in performance, and context-specific factors that together have a bearing on both the efficiency and accuracy of outcomes.

A return of mental imagery: The pictorial theory of visual perspective-taking.

The pictorial theory of mental imagery was a central concern of cognitive science during the latter years of the last century. Proponents of the theory argued that images are reinterpreted by the same processes that act upon perceptual inputs. This idea has recently re-emerged within the context of visual perspective-taking.

Visual perspective taking without visual perspective taking.

What happens when an observer takes an agent's visual perspective of a scene? We conducted a series of experiments designed to measure what proportion of adults take a rather than - approach to a visual perspective taking task. Adults were presented with images of an agent looking at a number (69). From the perspective of the viewer, the number appeared upside down.

'Seeing' proximal representations: Testing attitudes to the relationship between vision and images.

Corrections applied by the visual system, like size constancy, provide us with a coherent and stable perspective from ever-changing retinal images. In the present experiment we investigated how willing adults are to examine their own vision as if it were an uncorrected 2D image, much like a photograph. We showed adult participants two lines on a wall, both of which were the same length but one was closer to the participant and hence appeared visually longer.

Perirhinal cortex and the recognition of relative familiarity.

Spontaneous object recognition (SOR) is a widely used task of recognition memory in rodents which relies on their propensity to explore novel (or relatively novel) objects. Network models typically define perirhinal cortex as a region required for recognition of previously seen objects largely based on findings that lesions or inactivations of this area produce SOR deficits. However, relatively little is understood about the relationship between the activity of cells in the perirhinal cortex that signal novelty and familiarity and the behavioural responses of animals in the SOR task.

Visual perspective-taking and image-like representations: We don't see it.

The ability to represent another agent's visual perspective has recently been attributed to a process called "perceptual simulation", whereby we generate an image-like or "quasi-perceptual" representation of another agent's vision. In an extensive series of experiments we tested this notion. Adult observers were presented with pictures of an agent looking at two horizontal lines, one of which was closer to the agent and hence appeared longer from his/her visual perspective.

Impaired episodic simulation in a patient with visual memory deficit amnesia.

For the first time, we assess episodic simulation in a patient with visual memory deficit amnesia, following damage to visual association cortices. Compared to control participants, the patient with visual memory deficit amnesia shows severely restricted responses when asked to simulate different types of future episodic scenarios. Surprisingly, the patient's responses are more limited in cases where the scenarios require less reliance on visual information.

Two independent sources of difficulty in perspective-taking/theory of mind tasks.

Many perspective-taking and theory of mind tasks require participants to pass over the answer that is optimal from the self-perspective. For instance, in the classic change-of-location (false belief) task, participants are required to ignore where they know the object to be, and in the director task participants are required to ignore the best match for the instruction the other, less knowledgeable agent gives them (e.g.

Perspective-Taking: In Search of a Theory.

Perspective-taking has been one of the central concerns of work on social attention and developmental psychology for the past 60 years. Despite its prominence, there is no formal description of what it means to represent another's viewpoint. The present article argues that such a description is now required in the form of theory-a theory that should address a number of issues that are central to the notion of assuming another's viewpoint.

Grammatical gender and linguistic relativity: A systematic review.

Many languages assign nouns to a grammatical gender class, such that "bed" might be assigned masculine gender in one language (e.g., Italian) but feminine gender in another (e.

The NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 fails to impair long-term recognition memory in mice when the state-dependency of memory is controlled.

NMDA receptor-dependent synaptic plasticity has been proposed to be important for encoding of memories. Consistent with this hypothesis, the non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, MK-801, has been found to impair performance on tests of memory. Interpretation of some of these findings has, however, been complicated by the fact that the drug-state of animals has differed during encoding and tests of memory.

Continual Trials Spontaneous Recognition Tasks in Mice: Reducing Animal Numbers and Improving Our Understanding of the Mechanisms Underlying Memory.

Spontaneous recognition tasks are widely used as a laboratory measure of memory in animals but give rise to high levels of behavioral noise leading to a lack of reliability. Previous work has shown that a modification of the procedure to allow continual trials testing (in which many trials are run concurrently in a single session) decreases behavioral noise and thus significantly reduces the numbers of rats required to retain statistical power. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that this improved method of testing extends to mice, increasing the overall power of the approach.

Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity.

Previous research has reported that walking through a doorway to a new location makes memory for objects and events experienced in the previous location less accurate. This effect, termed the location updating effect, has been used to suggest that location changes are used to mark boundaries between events in memory: memories for objects encountered within the current event are more available than those from beyond an event boundary. Within a computer-generated memory task, participants navigated through virtual rooms, walking through doorways, and interacting with objects.

Incidental context information increases recollection.

The current study describes a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) task for human participants based on the spontaneous recognition memory paradigms typically used with rodents. Recollection was significantly higher when an object was in the same location and background as at encoding, a combination used to assess episodic-like memory in animals, but not when only one of these task-irrelevant cues was present. The results show that incidentally encoded cue information can determine the degree of recollection, and opens up the possibility of assessing recollection across species in a single experimental paradigm, allowing better understanding of the cognitive and biological mechanisms at play.

Self-referential memory in autism spectrum disorder and typical development: Exploring the ownership effect.

Owned objects occupy a privileged cognitive processing status and are viewed almost as extensions of the self. It has been demonstrated that items over which a sense of ownership is felt will be better remembered than other items (an example of the "self-reference effect"). As autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterised by an a typical self-concept, people with ASD may not demonstrate this "ownership effect".

Episodic-like memory is sensitive to both Alzheimer's-like pathological accumulation and normal ageing processes in mice.

Episodic memory depends on the hippocampus and is sensitive to both Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology and normal ageing. We showed previously that 3xTgAD mice express a specific, episodic-memory deficit at 6 months of age in the What-Where-Which occasion (WWWhich) task (Davis, Easton, Eacott and Gigg, 2013). This task requires the integration of object-location and contextual cues to form an episodic-like memory.

Episodic-like memory for what-where-which occasion is selectively impaired in the 3xTgAD mouse model of Alzheimer's disease.

Episodic memory loss is a defining feature of early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD). A test of episodic-like memory for the rat, the What-Where-Which occasion task (WWWhich), requires the association of object, location, and contextual information to form an integrated memory for an event. The WWWhich task cannot be solved by use of non-episodic information such as object familiarity and is dependent on hippocampal integrity.

The episodic nature of episodic-like memories.

Studying episodic memory in nonhuman animals has proved difficult because definitions in humans require conscious recollection. Here, we assessed humans' experience of episodic-like recognition memory tasks that have been used with animals. It was found that tasks using contextual information to discriminate events could only be accurately performed using recollection, not familiarity.

Cholinergic mechanisms of episodic memory: what specific behavioural tasks can tell us about specific neural mechanisms.

Understanding the neural basis of episodic memory is crucial for understanding how to treat memory loss in normal ageing as well as in disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. However, it is only recently that episodic memory has been able to be reliably modelled in animals allowing the biological basis to be fully explored. Here we review studies on the role of the cholinergic basal forebrain on episodic memory, and highlight differences in findings from studies in monkeys and rats.

Visual recognition memory across contexts.

In two experiments, we investigated the development of representational flexibility in visual recognition memory during infancy using the Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) task. In Experiment 1, 6- and 9-month-old infants exhibited recognition when familiarization and test occurred in the same room, but showed no evidence of recognition when familiarization and test occurred in different rooms. In contrast, 12- and 18-month-old infants exhibited recognition irrespective of testing room.

Medial septal cholinergic neurons are necessary for context-place memory but not episodic-like memory.

Loss of cholinergic cortical input is associated with diseases in which episodic memory impairment is a prominent feature, but the degree to which this neurochemical lesion can account for memory impairment in humans with neurodegenerative diseases remains unclear. Removal of cholinergic input to hippocampus impairs some of its functions in memory, perhaps by reducing the plasticity of information representation within the hippocampus, but the role of cholinergic hippocampal input in episodic-like memories has not been investigated. To address this question, we tested rats with selective lesions of basal forebrain neurons in the medial septum and vertical limb of the diagonal band (MS/VDB), which contains hippocampal-projecting cholinergic neurons, on a task of integrated memory for objects, places, and contexts ("what-where-which" memory).

Episodic memory in animals: remembering which occasion.

Episodic memory, the recollection of past events in one's life, has often been considered a memory specific to humans. Recent work in a variety of species has challenged this view, and has raised important questions about the nature of episodic memory itself. We present a review of the types of task proposed as episodic-like in animals and consider that these tasks require animals to demonstrate memory for specific occasions in the past.

Recollection of episodic memory within the medial temporal lobe: behavioural dissociations from other types of memory.

In recent years there has been significant debate about whether there is a single medial temporal lobe memory system or dissociable systems for episodic and other types of declarative memory. In addition there has been a similar debate over the dissociability of recollection and familiarity based processes in recognition memory. Here we present evidence from recent work using episodic memory tasks in animals that allows us to explore these issues in more depth.