The Perspective Monitoring Model (PMM): A 3+1 Framework for Describing Perspective Fixation and Perspective-Shifting Bias in Everyday Cognition

Human cognition varies depending on the perspective from which a situation is interpreted. Prior research has addressed perspective-taking, metacognition, decentering, and self-distancing as largely separate domains. However, an explicit framework that reorganizes these concepts into three object-level perspectives and a meta-perspective for monitoring perspective fixation does not appear to be established in the existing literature. This paper proposes the Perspective Monitoring Model (PMM), a 3+1 framework comprising three object-level perspectives—first-person (1st), second-person (2nd), and third-person/abstract (3rd)—together with a meta-perspective that monitors their use. The meta-perspective is not a fourth object-level perspective; it occupies a different hierarchical layer, one that monitors which object-level perspective is currently in use. The purpose of the PMM is not to evaluate perspective-taking ability. Rather, it aims to describe the patterns by which individuals tend to become fixed in particular perspectives and to experience difficulty transitioning between them. The PMM is positioned as a theoretical descriptive framework—not a diagnostic model, clinical intervention, or developmental stage theory.