scholarly journals Development of Predictive Responses in Theory of Mind Brain Regions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Richardson ◽  
Rebecca Saxe
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Control Network ◽  
Functional Responses ◽  
Pain Matrix ◽  
Anticipation Effect

When we watch movies, we consider the characters’ mental states in order to understand and predict the narrative. Recent work in fMRI uses movie-viewing paradigms to measure functional responses in brain regions recruited for such mental state reasoning (the Theory of Mind (“ToM”) network). Here, two groups of young children (n=30 3-4yo, n=26 6-7yo) viewed a short animated movie twice while undergoing fMRI. As children get older, ToM brain regions were recruited earlier in time during the second presentation of the movie. This “narrative anticipation” effect is specific: there was no such effect in a control network of brain regions that responds just as robustly to the movie (the “Pain Matrix”). These results complement prior studies in adults that suggest that ToM brain regions play a role not just in inferring, but in actively predicting, other people's thoughts and feelings, and provide novel evidence that as children get older, their ToM brain regions increasingly make such predictions. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Developmental Science. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12863 .

Neural Correlates of Mental State Decoding in Dysphoria: An Event‐Related Potential Study

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelita Wong
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Clinical Importance ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Depression Symptoms ◽  
Social Deficits ◽  
The Right

Depression is often associated with profound social and interpersonal functioning impairments. Negative interpersonal experiences may lead depressed individuals to withdraw from social interaction, which may in turn exacerbate the depression state (Rippere, 1980). As a result, it is of theoretical and clinical importance to understand the mechanisms underlying these social deficits. Researchers have applied the theory‐of‐mind framework to better understand the impaired social functioning in depressed individuals. Theory of mind refers to the everyday ability to attribute mental states (i.e., beliefs, desires, emotions) to others to both understand and predict their behaviour (Wellman, 1990). Research has found that individuindividuals with dysphoria (i.e. elevated scores on a measure of depression symptoms, but not necessarily a diagnosis of clinical depression) demonstrate enhanced mental state judgments (Harkness, Sabbagh, Jacobson, Chowdrey, & Chen, 2005). This study will determine neural mechanisms that may underlie this phenomenon by examining whether differences in brain activity exist between dysphoric and nondysphoric groups during mental states decoding. I will record electrophysiological data while participants are judging the mental states from pictures of eyes. Based on previous research (Sabbagh, Moulson, & Harkness, 2004), I anticipate that mental state decoding will be associated with the right inferior frontal and right anterior temporal regions of the brain. Furthermore, I hypothesize that dysphoric individuals will have greater activations in these brain regions and make significantly more accurate judgments than nondysphoric individuals when making mental state judgments.

scholarly journals An fMRI Investigation of Spontaneous Mental State Inference for Moral Judgment

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 1396-1405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liane Young ◽  
Rebecca Saxe
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Medial Pfc ◽  
The Right ◽  
State Inference ◽  
Moral Facts

Human moral judgment depends critically on “theory of mind,” the capacity to represent the mental states of agents. Recent studies suggest that the right TPJ (RTPJ) and, to lesser extent, the left TPJ (LTPJ), the precuneus (PC), and the medial pFC (MPFC) are robustly recruited when participants read explicit statements of an agent's beliefs and then judge the moral status of the agent's action. Real-world interactions, by contrast, often require social partners to infer each other's mental states. The current study uses fMRI to probe the role of these brain regions in supporting spontaneous mental state inference in the service of moral judgment. Participants read descriptions of a protagonist's action and then either (i) “moral” facts about the action's effect on another person or (ii) “nonmoral” facts about the situation. The RTPJ, PC, and MPFC were recruited selectively for moral over nonmoral facts, suggesting that processing moral stimuli elicits spontaneous mental state inference. In a second experiment, participants read the same scenarios, but explicit statements of belief preceded the facts: Protagonists believed their actions would cause harm or not. The response in the RTPJ, PC, and LTPJ was again higher for moral facts but also distinguished between neutral and negative outcomes. Together, the results illuminate two aspects of theory of mind in moral judgment: (1) spontaneous belief inference and (2) stimulus-driven belief integration.

Stable neural representations of mental states across target people and stimulus modalities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam E. Weaverdyck ◽  
Mark Allen Thornton ◽  
Diana Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
The Self ◽  
Similarity Analysis ◽  
Multiple Modalities ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Conceptual Core ◽  
Stimulus Modalities ◽  
Huge Variety

Each individual experiences mental states in their own idiosyncratic way, yet perceivers are able to accurately understand a huge variety of states across unique individuals. How do they accomplish this feat? Do people think about their own anger in the same ways as another person’s? Is reading about someone’s anxiety the same as seeing it? Here, we test the hypothesis that a common conceptual core unites mental state representations across contexts. Across three studies, participants judged the mental states of multiple targets, including a generic other, the self, a socially close other, and a socially distant other. Participants viewed mental state stimuli in multiple modalities, including written scenarios and images. Using representational similarity analysis, we found that brain regions associated with social cognition expressed stable neural representations of mental states across both targets and modalities. This suggests that people use stable models of mental states across different people and contexts.

Mind, child’s theory of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan M. Leslie
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Neurodevelopmental Disorder ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Preschool Period

Knowledge of other minds poses a variety of unusual problems due to the peculiarly private nature of mental states. Some current views, impressed by the contrast between the apparently direct access we have to our own mental states and the inaccessibility of others’ mental states, argue that we understand the mental states of others by imagining that they are our own by ‘simulation’. Other current views propose that we infer both our own mental states and the mental states of others by employing a set of conjectures arrived at through general inductive reasoning over experience: a ‘folk psychology’ or ‘theory of mind’. Experimental studies, by contrast, suggest that we possess an ‘instinct’ for comprehending the informational mental states of other minds. Children develop mental state concepts uniformly and rapidly in the preschool period when general reasoning powers are limited. For example, children can reason effectively about other people’s beliefs before they can reliably calculate that 2 plus 2 equals 4. In the empirical study of the ‘theory of mind’ instinct there have been three major discoveries so far: first, that normally developing 2-year-olds are able to recognize the informational state of pretending; second, that normally developing children can, by the age of 4 years, solve a variety of false belief problems; and lastly, that this instinct is specifically impaired in children with the neurodevelopmental disorder known as ‘autism’.

Neural Correlates of Mental State Decoding in Human Adults: An Event-related Potential Study

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Sabbagh ◽  
Margaret C. Moulson ◽  
Kate L. Harkness
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Core Theory ◽  
Human Adults ◽  
The Right

Successful negotiation of human social interactions rests on having a theory of mind—an understanding of how others' behaviors can be understood in terms of internal mental states, such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions. A core theory-of-mind skill is the ability to decode others' mental states on the basis of observable information, such as facial expressions. Although several recent studies have focused on the neural correlates of reasoning about mental states, no research has addressed the question of what neural systems underlie mental state decoding. We used dense-array eventrelated potentials (ERP) to show that decoding mental states from pictures of eyes is associated with an N270–400 component over inferior frontal and anterior temporal regions of the right hemisphere. Source estimation procedures suggest that orbitofrontal and medial temporal regions may underlie this ERP effect. These findings suggest that different components of everyday theory-of-mind skills may rely on dissociable neural mechanisms.

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.

Armstrong's Materialism

1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-592
Author(s):  
George S. Pappas
Keyword(s):  
Central Nervous System ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Central State ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
David Armstrong

Central-state materialism ( = CSM) is a very strong, but also very exciting theory of mind according to which each mental state is identical with a state of the central nervous system. CSM thus goes considerably beyond early versions of the identity theory of mind, since those early accounts (e.g., those of Place and Smart) held only that sensations are to be identified with neural events. CSM, by contrast, is a thesis about all mental states; every mental state is held to be a state of the central nervous system. In fact, as we will see shortly, CSM is an even more sweeping thesis than this formulation of it suggests, since it is not concerned simply with mental states.One prominent defender of CSM, David Armstrong, has maintained that CSM can be established by means of a two-step argument.

6.  Mental State Decoding in Dysphoric Individuals: The Role of Motivation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Depression Symptoms ◽  
Clinical Conditions ◽  
Decoding Ability

Depression is associated with pervasive impairments in social and interpersonal functioning. Research demonstrates that individuals with depression have difficulty interacting with peers and show lower levels of social activity than do nondepressed individuals (Levendosky, Okun, & Parker, 1995). In addition, depressed individuals report that their social interactions are less supportive and less rewarding than those of non‐depressed individuals (Nezlek, Hamptom, & Shean, 2000). This reduced social competence may cause depressed individuals to disengage from social interaction, which may in turn exacerbate their state of depression (Rippere, 1980). It is thus important to understand and identify the mechanisms beneath these deficits.  Researchers commonly use the theory of mind framework to understand impaired social functioning in clinical conditions. Theory of mind refers to the ability to make judgments about others’ mental states to understand and predict their social behaviour. Research has found a relationship between theory of mind and dysphoria (i.e., elevated scores on a measure of depression symptoms, but not necessarily a diagnosis of clinical depression). Specifically, dysphoric individuals demonstrate enhanced mental state judgments (Harkness, Sabbagh, Jacobson, Chowdrey, & Chen, 2005).  My research investigates social motivation as an underlying mechanism for dysphoric individuals’ enhanced decoding ability. A sample of undergraduates will participate in a theory of mind decoding task following social, monetary or no motivation. I hypothesize that dysphoric individuals will make significantly more accurate judgments than non‐dysphoric individuals. Further, I predict that social motivation will enhance non‐dysphoric individuals’ sensitivity to others’ mental states.

scholarly journals On the lack of evidence that non-human animals possess anything remotely resembling a ‘theory of mind’

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1480) ◽  
pp. 731-744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek C Penn ◽  
Daniel J Povinelli
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Agent ◽  
Experimental Protocols

After decades of effort by some of our brightest human and non-human minds, there is still little consensus on whether or not non-human animals understand anything about the unobservable mental states of other animals or even what it would mean for a non-verbal animal to understand the concept of a ‘mental state’. In the present paper, we confront four related and contentious questions head-on: (i) What exactly would it mean for a non-verbal organism to have an ‘understanding’ or a ‘representation’ of another animal's mental state? (ii) What should (and should not) count as compelling empirical evidence that a non-verbal cognitive agent has a system for understanding or forming representations about mental states in a functionally adaptive manner? (iii) Why have the kind of experimental protocols that are currently in vogue failed to produce compelling evidence that non-human animals possess anything even remotely resembling a theory of mind? (iv) What kind of experiments could, at least in principle, provide compelling evidence for such a system in a non-verbal organism?

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