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. In each case approximately as many participants judged the closer line to appear shorter as longer (to the agent), i.e., failures to take the agent's perspective. This occurred when clear depth cues were added to emphasise the agent's location relative to the stimuli, when the agent was moved closer to the lines, when the lines were oriented vertically, when judgments could be made while viewing the image, and when participants imagined themselves in the agent's place. It also persisted when we asked participants to imagine what a photo taken from the same location as the agent would show, ruling out a misinterpretation of the instructions. Overall, our data suggest that adults attempt to solve visual perspective-taking problems by drawing upon naïve and often erroneous ideas about how vision works.

代表另一个代理人的视觉视角的能力最近已归因于一个称为“感知模拟”的过程，在此过程中，我们生成了另一个代理人的视觉的图像似或“准感知”表示。在一系列广泛的实验中，我们测试了这个概念。为成年观察者提供了一个代理商的照片，它们看着两条水平线，其中一条更靠近代理商，因此从他/她的视觉角度来看显得更长。在每种情况下，大约有尽可能多的参与者判断出更近的线显得较短（对于代理而言）更长的时间，即无法接受代理的观点。当添加清晰的深度提示以强调主体相对于刺激的位置时，发生这种情况的发生是：主体朝着线靠近时，线垂直定向时，在查看图像时可以做出判断以及参与者想象自己时在代理商的位置。当我们要求参与者想象一下与特工在同一地点拍摄的照片时，它仍然存在，从而排除了对指示的误解。总体而言，我们的数据表明，成年人试图利用关于视觉如何运作的幼稚且经常错误的想法来解决视觉取景问题。