One useful strategy for inferring others' mental states (i.e., mentalizing) may be to use one's own thoughts, feelings, and desires as a proxy for those of other people. Such self-referential accounts of social cognition are supported by recent neuroimaging observations that a single brain region, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), is engaged both by tasks that require introspections about self and by tasks that require inferences about the minds of others perceived to be similar to self. To test whether people automatically refer to their own mental states when considering those of a similar other, we examined repetition-related suppression of vMPFC response during self-reflections that followed either an initial reflection about self or a judgment of another person. Consistent with the hypothesis that perceivers spontaneously engage in self-referential processing when mentalizing about particular individuals, vMPFC response was suppressed when selfreflections followed either an initial reflection about self or a judgment of a similar, but not a dissimilar, other. These results suggest that thinking about the mind of another person may rely importantly on reference to one's own mental characteristics. functional neuroimaging ͉ mentalizing ͉ self-reference ͉ social cognition

It has long been known that psychopathology can influence social perception, but a 2D framework of mind perception provides the opportunity for an integrative understanding of some disorders. We examined the covariation of mind perception with three subclinical syndromes-autism-spectrum disorder, schizotypy, and psychopathy-and found that each presents a unique mind-perception profile. Autism-spectrum disorder involves reduced perception of agency in adult humans. Schizotypy involves increased perception of both agency and experience in entities generally thought to lack minds. Psychopathy involves reduced perception of experience in adult humans, children, and animals. Disorders are differentially linked with the over-or underperception of agency and experience in a way that helps explain their real-world consequences.morality | empathy | theory of mind | transdiagnostic M ental disorders can reveal themselves in distortions of social perception. A person with a disorder may have difficulty understanding the goals of others, or in more profound cases, may ascribe life to inanimate objects or entirely fail to recognize mental states at all. Such distorted mind perception not only has consequences for sufferers of disorders and society at large, but may also help in understanding the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of psychopathology. In this research, we examine three subclinical syndromes associated with interpersonal difficulties: autism-spectrum disorder, schizotypy, and psychopathy. We predicted that each would be characterized by a unique pattern of distorted mind perception.Traditional approaches to psychopathology often treat individual disorders as separate entities, each with its own signs, symptoms, and etiology. Although this approach has made significant progress in defining and treating psychopathology, this compartmentalization of disorders belies the integrated nature of the mind. More recent research takes a "transdiagnostic" approach, characterizing separate disorders as different impairments of underlying cognitive systems (1). For example, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse all appear to be linked to disturbances of affect (2). We suggest that a number of disorders may be characterized as specific distortions of mind perception, atypical ascriptions of mental capacities to other entities.Successful interaction with the world requires knowing which entities have minds and which do not. Mind perception can therefore be distorted by overperception (perceiving a nonexistent mind) and underperception (failing to perceive an existent mind). Research suggests that both can be associated with adverse consequences for perceivers and targets, consequences that range from social faux pas to violence and death. For example, the overperception of mind in infants can lead to child abuse (3), but the underperception of mind in adults can lead to the denial of moral rights (4, 5).Although psychopathology has long been linked to abnormal social perception, recent discoveries provide a unique framework...

The ability to think about oneself--to self--reflect--is one of the defining features of the human mind. Recent research has suggested that this ability may be subserved by a particular brain region: the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). However, although humans can contemplate a variety of different aspects of themselves, including their stable personality traits, current feelings, and physical attributes, no research has directly examined the extent to which these different forms of self-reflection are subserved by common mechanisms. To address this question, participants were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while making judgments about their own personality traits, current mental states, and physical attributes as well as those of another person. Whereas some brain regions responded preferentially during only one form of self-reflection, a robust region of MPFC was engaged preferentially during self-reflection across all three types of judgment. These results suggest that--although dissociable--diverse forms of self-referential thought draw on a shared cognitive process subserved by MPFC.

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The ability to read the minds of others (i.e., to mentalize) requires that perceivers understand a wide range of different kinds of mental states, including not only others’ beliefs and knowledge but also their feelings, desires, and preferences. Moreover, although such inferences may occasionally rely on observable features of a situation, perceivers more typically mentalize under conditions of “uncertainty,” in which they must generate plausible hypotheses about a target's mental state from ambiguous or otherwise underspecified information. Here, we use functional neuroimaging to dissociate the neural bases of these 2 distinct social–cognitive challenges: 1) mentalizing about different types of mental states (beliefs vs. preferences) and 2) mentalizing under conditions of varying ambiguity. Although these 2 aspects of mentalizing have typically been confounded in earlier research, we observed a double dissociation between the brain regions sensitive to type of mental state and ambiguity. Whereas ventral and dorsal aspects of medial prefrontal cortex responded more during ambiguous than unambiguous inferences regardless of the type of mental state, the right temporoparietal junction was sensitive to the distinction between beliefs and preferences irrespective of certainty. These results underscore the emerging consensus that, rather than comprising a single mental operation, social cognition makes flexible use of different processes as a function of the particular demands of the social context.