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Poster Session A: Tuesday, August 12, 1:30 – 4:30 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Where you look in the past biases your social inference

Sangkyu Son¹, Seng Bum Michael Yoo; ¹Sung Kyun Kwan University

Presenter: Sangkyu Son

Humans are adept at inferring others' intentions by watching their actions. What do they observe while making an inference, and how would observation influence the inference? In this study, participants played an interactive pursuit game with a computerized opponent whose hidden intentions varied. Participants formed negatively biased inferences after the opponent behaved in an unexpectedly unfriendly way. However, it did not occur after unexpectedly helpful behavior. Such asymmetrical inference persisted even after the opponent's unfriendly behavior ceased, as long as it had been building up over time—a phenomenon of history and path dependence known as hysteresis. The inferential biases were associated with gaze selection: participants looked more at the unexpectedly unfriendly opponent, even though it increased variability in their control. These findings extend action-based inference models by incorporating what we choose to observe and accounting for asymmetrical hysteresis in social understanding.

Topic Area: Predictive Processing & Cognitive Control

Extended Abstract: Full Text PDF