@article {3622, title = {Rational inference of beliefs and desires from emotional expressions}, journal = {Cognitive Science}, volume = {42}, year = {2018}, month = {04/2018}, chapter = {850-884}, abstract = {

We investigated people{\textquoteright}s ability to infer others{\textquoteright} mental states from their emotional reactions, manipulating whether agents wanted, expected, and caused an outcome. Participants recovered agents{\textquoteright} desires throughout. When the agent observed, but did not cause the outcome, participants{\textquoteright} ability to recover the agent{\textquoteright}s beliefs depended on the evidence they got (i.e., her reaction only to the actual outcome or to both the expected and actual outcomes; Experiments 1 and 2). When the agent caused the event, participants{\textquoteright} judgments also depended on the probability of the action (Experiments 3 and 4); when actions were improbable given the mental states, people failed to recover the agent{\textquoteright}s beliefs even when they saw her react to both the anticipated and actual outcomes. A Bayesian model captured human performance throughout (rs >= .95), consistent with the proposal that people rationally integrate information about others{\textquoteright} actions and emotional reactions to infer their unobservable mental states.

}, author = {Wu, Yang and Chris Baker and Joshua B. Tenenbaum and Laura Schulz} }