title: The impact of egocentric vs. allocentric agency attributions on the neural bases of reasoning about social rules.
abstract: We used the "standard" and "switched" social contract versions of the Wason Selection-task to investigate the neural bases of human reasoning about social rules. Both these versions typically elicit the deontically correct answer, i.e. the proper identification of the violations of a conditional obligation. Only in the standard version of the task, however, this response corresponds to the logically correct one. We took advantage of this differential adherence to logical vs. deontical accuracy to test the different predictions of logic rule-based vs. visuospatial accounts of inferential abilities in 14 participants who solved the standard and switched versions of the Selection-task during functional-Magnetic-Resonance-Imaging. Both versions activated the well known left fronto-parietal network of deductive reasoning. The standard version additionally recruited the medial parietal and right inferior parietal cortex, previously associated with mental imagery and with the adoption of egocentric vs. allocentric spatial reference frames. These results suggest that visuospatial processes encoding one's own subjective experience in social interactions may support and shape the interpretation of deductive arguments and/or the resulting inferences, thus contributing to elicit content effects in human reasoning.
authors.affiliation: Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan 20132, Italy; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan 20132, Italy; Division of Neuroscience, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan 20132, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Canessa
authors.affiliation: Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan 20132, Italy. Electronic address: canessa.nicola@hsr.it.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pantaleo
authors.affiliation: Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan 20132, Italy; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan 20132, Italy. Electronic address: crespi.chiara@hsr.it.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Crespi
authors.affiliation: Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan 20122, Italy. Electronic address: alessandra.gorini@unimi.it.
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gorini
authors.affiliation: Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan 20132, Italy; Division of Neuroscience, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan 20132, Italy; IUSS Pavia, Piazza della Vittoria 15, 27100 Pavia, Italy. Electronic address: stefano.cappa@iusspavia.it.
authors.forename: Stefano F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Cappa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Agency attribution; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Parietal cortex; Prefrontal cortex; Social reasoning; Wason Selection-task