Perspective-taking

Perspective-taking is the act of perceiving a situation or understanding a concept from an alternative point of view, such as that of another individual. There is a vast amount of scientific literature that has looked at perspective-taking and suggests that it is crucial to human development, and that it may lead to a variety of beneficial outcomes. Perspective-taking is related to other theories and concepts including theory of mind and empathy. Both theory and research have suggested ages when children are able to begin to perspective-take and how that ability develops over time. Research has also suggested that there may be deficits in people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism on the ability of individuals to engage in perspective-taking. Additionally, studies have been conducted to assess the brain regions involved in perspective-taking. These studies suggest that several regions may be involved, including the prefrontal cortex and the precuneus. Additionally, studies suggest that perspective-taking may be possible in some non-human animals.Perspective-taking is the process by which an individual views a situation from another's point-of-view. Within the scientific literature, perspective-taking has been defined along two dimensions: perceptual and conceptual. Perceptual perspective-taking is defined as the ability to understand how another person experiences things through their senses (i.e. visually or auditorily). Most of this literature has focused on visual perspective-taking: the ability to understand the way another person sees things in physical space. Conceptual perspective-taking is defined as the ability to comprehend and take on the viewpoint of another person's psychological experience (i.e. thoughts, feelings and attitudes). For instance, one can visualize the viewpoint of a taller individual (perceptual/visual) or reflect upon another's point of view on a particular concept (conceptual). A little change in a perspective-taking can bring a trans-formative change in our lives.Previous studies have assessed the age at which humans are capable of visual perspective-taking. Various studies within the literature have drawn different conclusions.Visual perspective-taking studies that focus on brain regions are generally performed by collecting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while participants perform perspective-taking tasks. For example, a participant may be shown a picture of another person with objects around them and asked to take on the viewpoint of that person and indicate the number of objects they see (Level 1 visual perspective-taking) and if the objects are located to the right or left of the other person (level 2 visual perspective-taking). While the participant is completing this task they are also having an fMRI scan.Research has highlighted that it may be more difficult for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to perspective-take. ADHD research has shown that children with this diagnosis have shown impairments in attention and communication. Perspective-taking research has found that children with ADHD have a harder time taking on the viewpoint of others than children who do not have ADHD.An abundance of literature has linked perspective-taking abilities with other behaviors. Much of this literature specifically focuses on perceptual perspective-taking (or taking on the viewpoint of another person's thoughts, feelings and attitudes).Although studies have been done to assess if nonhuman animals are able to successfully engage in perspective-taking the literature has not drawn consistent conclusions. Many of these studies assess perspective-taking by training animals on specific tasks or by measuring the consistency of animals to follow the eye gaze of humans. Researchers highlight that being able to successful follow another's eye gaze could indicate that the animal is aware that the human is seeing and paying attention to something that is different from what they see.