Beyond Sight: Unravelling the Influence of Prior Knowledge on Level-1 Visual Perspective-Taking in Social Interactions.

Level-1 visual perspective-taking (VPT) enables individuals to infer what others see to support high-level cognitive processes. Despite evidence highlighting the importance of prior knowledge in social cognition, the specific impact of prior knowledge on level-1 VPT remains unclear. The present study conducted three experiments to fill this gap. In Experiment 1, the participants received prior knowledge about an avatar's subsequent action (i.e., turning or static) before judging disc visibility from their own or the avatar's perspective. Egocentric and altercentric biases emerged when prior knowledge was about turning, but only egocentric bias emerged when prior knowledge was about being stationary. Experiment 2 omitted the potential clues of the judgement task to replicate the findings of Experiment 1. The results revealed that egocentric and altercentric biases emerged regardless of whether prior knowledge was about turning or being stationary. Experiment 3 examined how stimulus presentation sequences influence level-1 VPT. Both egocentric and altercentric biases emerged when prior knowledge was about turning, whereas only egocentric bias emerged when prior knowledge was about being stationary. These results revealed that prior knowledge influences egocentric and altercentric biases in Level-1 VPT, with egocentric bias consistently observed and altercentric bias modulated by action salience and context ambiguity.