People use inverse planning to rationally seek social information from objects
Abstract
People use objects to make social judgments about traits of owners. Do people seek social information in a rational waysuggestive of Bayesian inverse planning? In two experiments, participants aimed to learn about a stranger. Each trialshowed two sets of objects; the stranger had chosen one from each set, but their choice was hidden. Participants judgedwhich would help them learn more about the stranger: Revealing their choice from set A or B? Participants selected setsrationally, identifying sets with a greater range of options as more informative: Larger sets over smaller; sets varying instyle over sets varying only in color (Exp.1). Participants also took into account constraints: They chose sets as moreinformative when all options were functional vs. when some were not (Exp.2). People consider the generative processbehind objects selection, using inverse planning to reason about the informational value of others objects.