New research carried out by experts from the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth (England) shows that humans “see” the actions of others not as they really are, but slightly distorted by our expectations.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B , the study could explain why people often misunderstand the actions of others.
The study involved 85 people. In the experiment, they watched on a touch screen how a hand reached for an object with a straight or arched path.
On some occasions, an obstruction was placed between the hand and the object it was reaching for. Therefore, the arcuate path was expected to avoid obstruction, while the straight path was “inefficient “. Where there was no obstruction, direct action was the easiest to hit the target directly, while arcuate trajectory was unnecessary and unexpected.
In the experiment, the action momentarily disappeared in the middle of the trajectory and the participants to describe what they had seen, had to judge which of the trajectories was the most efficient in each case.
Predictions
The results showed that people had judged that the straight hand path moved higher if inefficient, to avoid obstruction, while they perceived the arcuate path of the hand to be lower towards the target if there was no obstruction.
In both cases, the participants’ perceptions were based on what they expected the hand to do to maximize efficiency, not what it actually did.
Although the experiment concerned physical movement, it could help us understand how people discover what others think and feel; that is, why they behave the way they do, explains Matthew Hudson, leader of the work.
“Primates interpret behavior as goal-directed and expect others to achieve the goals as efficiently as possible,” he said. “While this is accepted among psychologists, little has been known about its underlying mechanisms. What we have found in this study may be important for a number of reasons. First, it shows that people make predictions when they see the actions of others. “.
“So imagine that you are a passenger in a car and you see a cat running out into the street. If the driver has seen it, you can imagine that he should slow down and swerve to avoid it. If he doesn’t, you immediately think that he probably He has not seen the cat and you can warn him, “he clarifies.
Finally, according to experts, the results show that people “see” the actions of others in light of their own expectations. If we see someone looking at something with a neutral expression and we think they are angry, they may appear a little more angry than they really are. “This could explain why people often misinterpret the actions of others and consider ambiguous behavior to be significant,” Hudson concludes.
Reference: Perceptual teleology: expectations of action efficiency bias social perception Matthew Hudson, Katrina L. McDonough, Rhys Edwards, Patric Bach Published 8 August 2018 Proceedings of the Royal Society B. DOI: 10.1098 / rspb.2018.0638
