title: The theory-of-mind network in support of action verb comprehension: evidence from an fMRI study.
abstract: The theory-of-mind (ToM) network refers to a specific group of brain regions implicated in the thinking of people's mental states. It remains unclear how this network contributes to verb comprehension. In the present study, we compared brain activations evoked by verbs that refer to social actions, private actions, and nonhuman events. All classic regions of the ToM network, including the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) whose activation during word comprehension is typically interpreted as the processing of motion properties, showed stronger activations to social action verbs than the others. These findings indicate that the ToM network is involved in the processing of social/mental knowledge of verb meanings. Furthermore, the activation of the pSTS during word comprehension mainly reflects the processing of social/mental properties but not that of biological-motion properties.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Electronic address: linn@psych.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Yanchao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Chunming
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Xingshan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D056345:Theory of Mind; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Action; Biological motion; Semantic; Theory of mind; Verb; fMRI