Figure 1. Social working memory paradigm.

Note. Social working memory (SWM) paradigm. For SWM trials (Panels A and B), participants determine how the target character (indicated by pink box) would feel, based on the other characters’ feelings. The red thumbs-down sign indicates that a character is feeling negatively, whereas the green thumbs-up sign indicates that a character is feeling positively. For non-SWM trials (Panels C-D), participants alphabetize the characters’ names, based on which name anchors the alphabet line (indicated by the anchor sign). Panels A and C show two-load working memory trials and Panels B and D show four-load working memory trials. Participants encode the initial stimuli for 4 seconds, followed by a 4 second delay period. Participants next have up to 3 seconds to make their response. In the example shown in Figure 1B, respondents would reason serially about Piper’s mental state in the following sequence: she would be unhappy if Larry, her fiancé, is unhappy (rating = 1); she would be happier if she learned that Tiffany, her enemy, is unhappy (rating increases to 2); and she would be happier still if she learns that Claire, her girlfriend, is happy (rating increases to 3, the correct answer).