scholarly journals The role of right temporoparietal junction in processing social prediction error across relationship contexts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
BoKyung Park ◽  
Dominic Fareri ◽  
Mauricio Delgado ◽  
Liane Young
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Error ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Behavioral Pattern ◽  
Negative Behavior ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Conflicting Evidence ◽  
The Face ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Social Prediction

Abstract How do people update their impressions of close others? Although people may be motivated to maintain their positive impressions, they may also update their impressions when their expectations are violated (i.e. prediction error). Combining neuroimaging and computational modeling, we test the hypothesis that brain regions associated with theory of mind, especially right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ), underpin both motivated impression maintenance and impression updating evoked by prediction error. Participants had money either given to or taken away from them by a friend or a stranger and were then asked to rate each partner on trustworthiness and closeness across trials. Overall, participants engaged in less impression updating for friends vs strangers. Decreased rTPJ activity in response to a friend’s negative behavior (taking money) was associated with reduced negative updating and increased positive ratings of the friend. However, to the extent that participants did update their impressions (more negative ratings) of friends, this behavioral pattern was explained by greater prediction error and greater rTPJ activity. These findings suggest that rTPJ recruitment represents the integration of prediction error signals and the capacity to overcome people’s motivation to maintain positive impressions of friends in the face of conflicting evidence.

scholarly journals Theory of Mind, pragmatics and the brain

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Enrici ◽  
Bruno G. Bara ◽  
Mauro Adenzato
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Communicative Intention ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction

Abstract Theory of Mind (ToM) is a neurocognitive system that allows the perceiver to attribute mental states, such as intentions, beliefs, or feelings, to others’ actions. The aim of the present work is to analyse the engagement of the ToM system in communication, in particular, in communicative intention processing. To this aim, we propose an Intention Processing Network (IPN) with its own principles and mechanisms, that is, a brain network differentially engaged according to the complex intertwining of the context, goal, and action involved. According to our IPN model, a set of brain regions of the ToM system (i.e. left and right temporoparietal junction, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex) are differentially involved in comprehending different types of intention, such as private or social intentions. We provide independent and convergent evidence on the role of the IPN model in communicative intention processing and we show that the engagement of the IPN does not depend upon the communicative means used, that is, written language, auditory language, or gesture. Evidence deriving from different experimental paradigms, including neuroimaging, lesion, neurodegenerative, and brain stimulation studies are discussed. In our view, this evidence establishes a link between ToM and pragmatics studies and suggests the role of intention processing as a core feature of human communication.

scholarly journals Asking ‘why?’ enhances theory of mind when evaluating harm but not purity violations

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 699-708 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A Dungan ◽  
Liane Young
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Task Instructions ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right

Abstract Recent work in psychology and neuroscience has revealed important differences in the cognitive processes underlying judgments of harm and purity violations. In particular, research has demonstrated that whether a violation was committed intentionally vs accidentally has a larger impact on moral judgments of harm violations (e.g. assault) than purity violations (e.g. incest). Here, we manipulate the instructions provided to participants for a moral judgment task to further probe the boundary conditions of this intent effect. Specifically, we instructed participants undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging to attend to either a violator’s mental states (why they acted that way) or their low-level behavior (how they acted) before delivering moral judgments. Results revealed that task instructions enhanced rather than diminished differences between how harm and purity violations are processed in brain regions for mental state reasoning or theory of mind. In particular, activity in the right temporoparietal junction increased when participants were instructed to attend to why vs how a violator acted to a greater extent for harm than for purity violations. This result constrains the potential accounts of why intentions matter less for purity violations compared to harm violations and provide further insight into the differences between distinct moral norms.

scholarly journals Increasing the role of belief information in moral judgments by stimulating the right temporoparietal junction

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 400-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Sellaro ◽  
Berna Güroǧlu ◽  
Michael A. Nitsche ◽  
Wery P.M. van den Wildenberg ◽  
Valentina Massaro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right

scholarly journals Role of the right temporoparietal junction in intergroup bias in trust decisions

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1677-1688
Author(s):  
Junya Fujino ◽  
Shisei Tei ◽  
Takashi Itahashi ◽  
Yuta Y. Aoki ◽  
Haruhisa Ohta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intergroup Bias ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right

scholarly journals Insular Cortex Mediates Attentional Capture by Behaviorally Relevant Stimuli after Damage to the Right Temporoparietal Junction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radek Ptak ◽  
Elena Pedrazzini
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Mechanistic Model ◽  
Insular Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Functional Connection ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Spatial Cuing ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right

Abstract The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) and insula both play a key role for the processing of relevant stimuli. However, while both have been conceived as neural “switches” that detect salient events and redirect the focus of attention, it remains unclear how these brain regions interact to achieve this behavioral goal. Here, we tested human participants with focal left-hemispheric or right-hemispheric lesions in a spatial cuing task that requires participants to react to lateralized stimuli preceded by a distracter that shares or does not share a relevant feature with the target. Using machine learning to identify significant lesion–behavior relationships, we found that rTPJ damage produces distinctive, pathologically increased attentional capture, but only by relevant distracters. Functional connectivity analyses revealed that the degree of capture is positively associated with a functional connection between insula and rTPJ, together with functional isolation of the rTPJ from right dorsal prefrontal cortex (dPFC). These findings suggest a mechanistic model where the insula–rTPJ connection constitutes a crucial functional unit that breaks attentional focus upon detection of behaviorally relevant events, while the dPFC appears to attune this activity.

scholarly journals Early and late neural correlates of mentalizing: ALE meta-analyses in adults, children and adolescents

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn V Fehlbaum ◽  
Réka Borbás ◽  
Katharina Paul ◽  
Simon b Eickhoff ◽  
Nora m Raschle
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Meta Analyses

Abstract The ability to understand mental states of others is referred to as mentalizing and enabled by our Theory of Mind. This social skill relies on brain regions comprising the mentalizing network as robustly observed in adults but also in a growing number of developmental studies. We summarized and compared neuroimaging evidence in children/adolescents and adults during mentalizing using coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses to inform about brain regions consistently or differentially engaged across age categories. Adults (N = 5286) recruited medial prefrontal and middle/inferior frontal cortices, precuneus, temporoparietal junction and middle temporal gyri during mentalizing, which were functionally connected to bilateral inferior/superior parietal lobule and thalamus/striatum. Conjunction and contrast analyses revealed that children and adolescents (N = 479) recruit similar but fewer regions within core mentalizing regions. Subgroup analyses revealed an early continuous engagement of middle medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and right temporoparietal junction in younger children (8–11 years) and adolescents (12–18 years). Adolescents additionally recruited the left temporoparietal junction and middle/inferior temporal cortex. Overall, the observed engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and right temporoparietal junction during mentalizing across all ages reflects an early specialization of some key regions of the social brain.

scholarly journals A brain network supporting social influences in human decision-making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Jan P. Gläscher
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prediction Error ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Functional Coupling ◽  
Integrated Network ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right

AbstractHumans learn from their own trial-and-error experience and from observing others. However, it remains unanswered how brain circuits compute expected values when direct learning and social learning coexist in an uncertain environment. Using a multi-player reward learning paradigm with 185 participants (39 being scanned) in real-time, we observed that individuals succumbed to the group when confronted with dissenting information, but increased their confidence when observing confirming information. Leveraging computational modeling and fMRI we tracked direct valuation through experience and vicarious valuation through observation, and their dissociable, but interacting neural representations in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, respectively. Their functional coupling with the right temporoparietal junction representing instantaneous social information instantiated a hitherto uncharacterized social prediction error, rather than a reward prediction error, in the putamen. These findings suggest that an integrated network involving the brain’s reward hub and social hub supports social influence in human decision-making.

scholarly journals The Surprising Role of the Default Mode Network

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Brandman ◽  
R. Malach ◽  
E. Simony.
Keyword(s):  
Default Mode Network ◽  
Prediction Error ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Cognitive States ◽  
Fluctuation Pattern ◽  
Unexpected Findings ◽  
High Level

AbstractThe default mode network (DMN) is a group of high-order brain regions recently implicated in processing external naturalistic events, yet it remains unclear what cognitive function it serves. Here we identified the cognitive states predictive of DMN fMRI coactivation. Particularly, we developed a state-fluctuation pattern analysis, matching network coactivations across a short movie with retrospective behavioral sampling of movie events. Network coactivation was selectively correlated with the state of surprise across movie events, compared to all other cognitive states (e.g. emotion, vividness). The effect was exhibited in the DMN, but not dorsal attention or visual networks. Furthermore, surprise was found to mediate DMN coactivations with hippocampus and nucleus accumbens. These unexpected findings point to the DMN as a major hub in high-level prediction-error representations.

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