Efficient belief tracking in adults: The role of task instruction, low-level associative processes and dispositional social functioning

- Adults compute other people's beliefs even when their own belief is prioritised.
- This highlights the ubiquity of efficient other-belief processing.
- The processing occurs even when low-level associative processes are impeded.
- Adults with high empathy quotient are more other-oriented in the belief task.

A growing body of evidence suggests that adults can monitor other people's beliefs in an efficient way. However, the nature and the limits of efficient belief tracking are still being debated. The present study addressed these issues by testing (a) whether adults spontaneously process other people's beliefs when overt task instructions assign priority to participants' own belief, (b) whether this processing relies on low-level associative processes and (c) whether the propensity to track other people's beliefs is linked to empathic disposition. Adult participants were asked to alternately judge an agent's belief and their own belief. These beliefs were either consistent or inconsistent with each other. Furthermore, visual association between the agent and the object at which he was looking was either possible or impeded. Results showed interference from the agent's belief when participants judged their own belief, even when low-level associations were impeded. This indicates that adults still process other people's beliefs when priority is given to their own belief at the time of computation, and that this processing does not depend on low-level associative processes. Finally, performance on the belief task was associated with the Empathy Quotient and the Perspective Taking scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, indicating that efficient belief processing is linked to a dispositional dimension of social functioning.