Abstract: Visual perspective-taking (VPT) refers to the ability to perceive or understand a situation from an alternative point of view, such as that of another individual. Developmentally, VPT includes two levels: level-1 which is the ability to judge whether another person can perceive what the perceiver saw, and Level-2 which requires the perceiver to understand the way another person view things. VPT tasks typically ask participants to make judgments about what a target person perceive. Previous studies found that participants make more errors and were slower in conducting an inconsistent VPT task in which participants’ self-perspective differs from that of the target person, than in a consistent task in which self-perspective is in line with the target person’s perspective. In addition, studies found that performance in VPT tasks is correlated with people’s ability in inhibitory control. By using the negative priming (NP) paradigm, a few recent studies suggest inhibitory control play an important role in solving level-2 VPT task. The present study tested whether inhibitory control is necessary in solving inconsistent level-1 and level-2 VPT tasks. Experiment 1 tested whether inhibitory control was needed in performing level-2 VPT task. Experiment 1 required participants to judge in which hand a figure in a visual picture was holding a black ball. The task requires participants to understand the way another individual perceive, hence is a level-2 task. By using a negative priming design, the result showed that response time was longer when conducting a consistent task (i.e., the figure in the visual task was a back-facing figure, hence self-perspective is in line with the target person’s perspective) after successfully performing an inconsistent task (i.e., the figure in the picture was front-facing) than after a neutral task. The result indicated that when self-perspective differs from the other person’s perspective, an individual need to inhibit his/her egocentric perspective to successfully view the way the other person perceives. Experiment 2 tested whether inhibitory control was needed in performing level-1 VPT task. The task asked participants to judge the number of dots a figure in a picture could see. The figure in the picture was facing the left-hand/right-hand wall from the view of the perceiver, hence could not see the dots shown in the right-hand/left-hand wall. Therefore, this task evaluates whether participants could judge whether the figure in the picture could perceive what the participants themselves saw, hence, evaluating participant’s level-1 VPT ability. By using a negative priming design, the result showed that participants made more error in a consistent task (i.e., all the dots were in the left-hand wall and figure in the picture was facing the left-hand wall) after they performed an inconsistent task (i.e., some dots were in the right-hand wall but figure in the picture was facing the left-hand wall) than after a neutral task, even though participants performed the consistent tasks equally fast in the two conditions. The result indicated that an individual need to inhibit his/her own perspective to evaluate what the other person could perceive when self-perspective differs from the other person’s perspective. The present study added to the literature by showing that taking other’s visual perspective demands inhibition of egocentric perspective in both level-1 and level-2 visual perspective taking.

Key words: visual perspective taking, inhibitory control, negative priming

摘要： 从抑制控制模型出发，采用负启动范式考察视觉观点采择的认知机制。实验1采用自身体转换任务(N=35) 、实验2采用圆点数量判断任务(N=33)分别考察成人在完成二级和一级视觉观点采择任务时是否需要抑制控制的参与。结果发现，成人在完成两类视觉观点采择任务时均出现了负启动效应，说明当他人观点和自我观点不一致时，个体需要抑制自我的观点才能成功采择他人的观点。

关键词: 视觉观点采择, 抑制控制, 负启动