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Cited by 10Child and Animal Learning DevelopmentSocial Robot Interaction and HRIAction Observation and Synchronization

When shapes are more than shapes: perceptual, developmental, and neurophysiological basis for attributions of animacy and theory of mind

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Torabian, Sajjad, Grossman, Emily D.·2023·Frontiers in Psychology
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1168739PMC PMC10513434
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Abstract

Among a variety of entities in their environment, what do humans consider alive or animate and how does this attribution of animacy promote development of more abstract levels of mentalizing? By decontextualizing the environment of bodily features, we review how physical movements give rise to perceived animacy in Heider-Simmel style animations. We discuss the developmental course of how perceived animacy shapes our interpretation of the social world, and specifically discuss when and how children transition from perceiving actions as goal-directed to attributing behaviors to unobservable mental states. This transition from a teleological stance, asserting a goal-oriented interpretation to an agent's actions, to a mentalistic stance allows older children to reason about more complex actions guided by hidden beliefs. The acquisition of these more complex cognitive behaviors happens developmentally at the same time neural systems for social cognition are coming online in young children. We review perceptual, developmental, and neural evidence to identify the joint cognitive and neural changes associated with when children begin to mentalize and how this ability is instantiated in the brain.

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  • Our innate focus on social cues may relate to humans' propensity to anthropomorphize.

    “Our innate focus on social cues may relate to humans’ propensity to anthropomorphize—viewing even non-social things in the environment as if they were social, using our social skills to make predictions about, for example, the movements of objects (such as in the Heider–Simmel animation; [85]).”

    From The social origins of consciousness (2025) · cites this paper as [85]

    The Introduction describes people interpreting moving geometric shapes as social agents, and Section 4 reports newborns’ early preference for social and animacy cues. But Section 6.3 cautions that these human preferences cannot be established as innate rather than learned, and the paper does not establish a link between that preference and anthropomorphizing objects. (LLM, conf=0.83)

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Flavell J. H. (1988). The Development of Children's Knowledge About the Mind: From Cognitive Connections to Mental Representations. Developing Theories of Mind. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press), 244– 267.
  2. Stewart J. A. (1982). Perception of Animacy (dissertations thesis). University of Pennsylvania.

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Authors
Torabian, S., & Grossman, E. D.
Affiliations
University of California, Irvine (US)
Corresponding author
Torabian, Sajjad
ORCID
Grossman, Emily D.
Venue
Frontiers in Psychology
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2023-09-07
Volume
14
Pages
1168739-1168739
ISSN
1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1168739
PMC
PMC10513434
OpenAlex
W4386521124
Cited by
10
References
140
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 2
FWCI
0.57
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
National Science Foundation (1658560)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
Keywords
perceived animacy, theory of mind, mentalization, goal-directed action, teleological reasoning, social cognition development, children's social cognition

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