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# Embodied and disembodied cognition: Spatial perspective-taking

## Details

**Authors** Tversky and Hard

**Year** 2008

**Publisher** Cognition

**Discipline** Cognitive Science

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.10.008) 
10.1016/j.cognition.2008.10.008

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To research the nature of egocentric perspectives.

### What they found (results)

The self comes first and anything else takes extra mental effort. Terms like front, back, left, and right are usually used in relation to the self’s spatial position in the environment. However, sometimes taking another’s perspective was necessary for survival. Socially, this occurs when someone asks for directions or the location of an object. When asking people to take spatial Perspectives (either their own, another’s, or an object’s) people naturally took their own when they were in the room alone. However when another person was introduced as part of the scene, they subconsciously switched to taking that person’s spatial Perspective. “Given the difficulty of using right and left from one’s own Perspective, reversing right and left to take another’s Perspective is notable."

## Commentary

### In short

This indicates that just the visual cue of another person is enough to trigger the use of Perspectives.

### In more detail

Tversky and Hard, 2008, asserted that having an egocentric Perspective is natural, which if looked at from an evolutionary Perspective, makes sense. The self comes first and anything else takes extra mental effort. Terms like front, back, left, and right are usually used in relation to the self’s spatial position in the environment. However, sometimes taking another’s perspective was necessary for survival. Socially, this occurs when someone asks for directions or the location of an object. In their two studies, when asking people to take spatial Perspectives (either their own, another’s, or an object’s) people naturally took their own when they were in the room alone. However when another person was introduced as part of the scene, they subconsciously switched to taking that person’s spatial Perspective. “Given the difficulty of using right and left from one’s own Perspective, reversing right and left to take another’s Perspective is notable.” They also offer, “It would be an interesting if surprising extension of embodied cognition if attitudinal or emotional perspective-taking also promoted spatial perspective-taking.” This indicates that just the visual cue of another person is enough to trigger the use of Perspectives.

**Patterns it shows** P

**How to cite this** Tversky and Hard (2008). Embodied and disembodied cognition: Spatial perspective-taking. Cognition.