Brain activation for spontaneous and explicit false belief tasks overlaps: new fMRI evidence on belief processing and violation of expectation.
There is extensive discussion on whether spontaneous and explicit forms of ToM are based on the same cognitive/neural mechanisms or rather reflect qualitatively different processes. For the first time, we analyzed the BOLD signal for false belief processing by directly comparing spontaneous and explicit ToM task versions. In both versions, participants watched videos of a scene including an agent who acquires a true or false belief about the location of an object (belief formation phase). At the end of the movies (outcome phase), participants had to react to the presence of the object. During the belief formation phase, greater activity was found for false vs true belief trials in the right posterior parietal cortex. The ROI analysis of the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), confirmed this observation. Moreover, the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC) was active during the outcome phase, being sensitive to violation of both the participant's and agent's expectations about the location of the object. Activity in the TPJ and aMPFC was not modulated by the spontaneous/explicit task. Overall, these data show that neural mechanisms for spontaneous and explicit ToM overlap. Interestingly, a dissociation between TPJ and aMPFC for belief tracking and outcome evaluation, respectively, was also found.
Department of Experimental Psychology.
Lara
L
Bardi
Department of Experimental Psychology.
Charlotte
C
Desmet
Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Annabel
A
Nijhof
Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Jan R
JR
Wiersema
Department of Experimental Psychology.
Marcel
M
Brass
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D010101:Oxygen Consumption / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011336:Probability; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
fMRI; false belief; spontaneous theory of mind
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