Taking time to take perspective? Rapidly changing reference frames in the avatar-Simon task

The avatar-Simon task demonstrates that even task irrelevant avatars cause compatibility effects from their point of view, a result that can be interpreted within the frameworks of spontaneous spatial perspective taking and referential coding. In the present study, we used an avatar-Simon task with rapidly changing avatar positions and with simultaneous and non-simultaneous presentations to investigate the time course of this phenomenon. The results showed that participants took the avatar's perspective into account even when the avatar's position was randomized on a trial-by-trial basis. This avatar-compatibility effect was also observed when avatar and stimulus were presented simultaneously, even though the participants had no time to adopt the avatar's perspective in advance. However, the effect was much more pronounced when a delay between avatar and stimulus presentation was in place.