Level‐2 perspectives computed quickly and spontaneously: Evidence from eight‐ to 9.5‐year‐old children

It has been widely assumed that computing how a scene looks from another perspective (level‐2 perspective taking, PT) is an effortful process, as opposed to the automatic capacity of tracking visual access to objects (level‐1 PT). Recently, adults have been found to compute both forms of visual perspectives in a quick but context‐sensitive way, indicating that the two functions share more features than previously assumed. However, the developmental literature still shows the dissociation between automatic level‐1 and effortful level‐2 PT. In the current paper, we report an experiment showing that in a minimally social situation, participating in a number verification task with an adult confederate, eight‐ to 9.5‐year‐old children demonstrate similar online level‐2 PT capacities as adults. Future studies need to address whether online PT shows selectivity in children as well and develop paradigms that are adequate to test preschoolers’ online level‐2 PT abilities. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Adults can access how objects appear to others (level‐2 perspective) spontaneously and online Online level‐1, but not level‐2 perspective taking (PT) has been documented in school‐aged children What the present study adds? Eight‐ to 9.5‐year‐olds performed a number verification task with a confederate who had the same task Children showed similar perspective interference as adults, indicating spontaneous level‐2 PT Not only agent‐object relations but also object appearances are computed online by eight‐ to 9.5‐year‐olds