That's an interesting result. I wonder if it's also true for chunks of people on the autism spectrum?
I wonder if this is the same anthropomorphization effect that makes me want to think about how "the algorithm needs to know this" or "the computer watches for that event" when I'm programming.
Yes, I experience something similar when writing or understanding proofs. I think about how the proof is "using" something. This seems common among mathematicians. Mathematicians also seem to be fond about talking about where objects "live" which is similar notation.
The Wason Selection Task is the somewhat famous experimental problem that requires attempting to falsify a hypothesis in order to get the correct answer. From the wikipedia article:
Aside from an illustration of the rampancy of confirmation bias (only 10-20% of people get it right), the task is interesting for another reason: when framed in terms of social interactions, people's performance dramatically improves:
However, apparently psychopaths perform nearly as badly on the "social contract" versions of this experiment as they do on the normal one. From the Economist:
The original (gated) research appears to be here.