Egocentric or ‘altercentric’? Cognitive and neural bases of visual perspective-taking

Abstract

Scientific literature on the capacity to take another’s perspective uses the term ‘altercentric’ (and ‘altercentrism’) to refer to the propensity to perceive situations and events from another person’s point of view, in contrast to the term egocentric (and egocentrism) implying the opposite propensity. For a long time, the primacy of the egocentric bias has been established over the altercentric one, independently from the situations and the stages of the individual’s psychological development. Instead, in recent years a consolidating view indicates that the altercentric bias compares first in infancy and that, in several situations, the another’s point of view can be adopted spontaneously. Altercentrism is associated to the activity of specific neural structures involving the temporo-parietal junction and the inferior frontal gyrus. Furthermore, individual differences in the egocentric and altercentric bias have been observed as well as in the capacity to deal with conflicting perspectives. Thus, available evidence shed new light on altercentrism in humans, underscoring its relevance in terms of evolution and adaptation, and show the possibility to improve this capacity through stimulation protocols, combining behavioral training and non-invasive brain stimulation.