Brain activation for spontaneous and explicit false belief tasks overlaps: new fMRI evidence on belief processing and violation of expectation

Bardi, Lara; Desmet, Charlotte; Nijhof, Annabel D.; Wiersema, Jan R.; Braß, Marcel

doi:10.1093/scan/nsw143

Cited by 45 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…All other ROIs showed no significant difference, t s < 1.78, P s > 0.090. Extending on the small group of brain regions identified in initial investigations into spontaneous, belief‐specific implicit ToM abilities [Bardi et al, ; Hyde et al, ; Kovács et al, ; Schneider et al, ], these results demonstrated substantial overlap between the implicit and explicit ToM neural systems and point toward a general system in the brain for belief processing.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 58%

“…Evidence for the role of the TPJ in the implicit ToM system is mixed. Indeed, some studies have found that the right TPJ was more active when a protagonist's belief was a false, relative to a true, reflection of reality [Bardi et al, ; Hyde et al, ; Kovács et al, ), whereas others have failed to find any difference despite using multiple analytic approaches [Schneider et al, ]. The results from this study suggest that the right TPJ is indeed part of the implicit ToM system, as it can detect the presence versus absence of a false belief state.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…In our work, participants' primary task is to detect high and low tones, with the aim of distracting them from (or at least reducing the chances of) engaging in explicit mentalizing while watching the videos. Conversely, Kovács et al [], Bardi et al [] and Hyde et al [] instructed participants to detect whether the ball (the target content of the protagonist's true‐/false‐belief) was present or absent, or to passively view the movies, respectively. Thus, there was no way to guarantee that the TPJ activity observed in these studies does not reflect some level of explicit belief processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[2014], Bardi et al [2017] and Hyde et al [2015] instructed participants to detect whether the ball (the target content of the protagonist's true-/false-belief) was present or absent, or to passively view the movies, respectively. Thus, there was no way to guarantee that the TPJ activity observed in these studies does not reflect some level of explicit belief processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Do implicit and explicit belief processing share neural substrates?

et al. 2017

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Humans rely on their ability to infer another person's mental state to understand and predict others' behavior ("theory of mind," ToM). Multiple lines of research suggest that not only are humans able to consciously process another person's belief state, but also are able to do so implicitly. Here we explored how general implicit belief states are represented in the brain, compared to those substrates involved in explicit ToM processes. Previous work on this topic has yielded conflicting results, and thus, the extent to which the implicit and explicit ToM systems draw on common neural bases is unclear. Participants were presented with "Sally-Anne" type movies in which a protagonist was falsely led to believe a ball was in one location, only for a puppet to later move it to another location in their absence (false-belief condition). In other movies, the protagonist had their back turned the entire time the puppet moved the ball between the two locations, meaning that they had no opportunity to develop any pre-existing beliefs about the scenario (no-belief condition). Using a group of independently localized explicit ToM brain regions, we found greater activity for false-belief trials, relative to no-belief trials, in the right temporoparietal junction, right superior temporal sulcus, precuneus, and left middle prefrontal gyrus. These findings extend upon previous work on the neural bases of implicit ToM by showing substantial overlap between this system and the explicit ToM system, suggesting that both abilities might recruit a common set of mentalizing processes/functional brain regions. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4760-4772, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 58%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Do implicit and explicit belief processing share neural substrates?

et al. 2017

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“…Given the scarcity of studies investigating the spontaneous ToM system, contradictory findings, and the limited number of participants in each experiment, the present study sought to investigate the above hypotheses using a mega-analytic design in a sample of healthy participants. To this end, we combined data from three previous MRI studies that used the same spontaneous ToM task (in the same MRI scanner) to investigate the neural correlates of spontaneous false belief processing in a bigger sample (Bardi et al, 2017;Hudson, Van Hamme, Maeyens, Brass & Mueller [preprint, bioRxiv]; Nijhof et al, 2018). Using such an approach should result in a sufficiently large sample to overcome the power issue limiting previous findings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining the neural correlates of spontaneous theory of mind (ToM): An fMRI mega-analytic investigation

Boccadoro

Cracco

et al. 2019

Preprint

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There is a major debate in the theory of mind (ToM) field, concerning whether spontaneous and explicit ToM are based on the same or two distinct cognitive systems. While there is extensive research on the neural correlates of explicit ToM, revealing consistent activation of the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), few studies investigated spontaneous ToM, with conflicting results, probably due to having small samples of participants. Here, we implemented a mega-analytic approach by pooling data from three fMRI studies, to achieve enough statistical power to better define the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying spontaneous ToM. Participants watched videos in which an agent acquires a true or false belief about the location of a ball. By analysing the blood-oxygen level dependent signal during the belief formation phase for false versus true beliefs, we found a cluster of activation in the right, and to a lesser extent, left posterior parietal cortex spanning the TPJ, but no mPFC activation. Region of interest (ROI) analysis on bilateral TPJ and mPFC confirmed these results and added evidence to the content-selectivity for false beliefs with positive content and asymmetry in laterality of the spontaneous ToM system. Interestingly, the whole brain analysis, supported by an overlap with brain maps, revealed maximum activation in areas involved in visuospatial working memory and attention switching functions, such as the supramarginal gyrus, the middle temporal gyrus, and the inferior frontal gyrus. Taken together, these findings suggest that spontaneous and explicit ToM rely on partially overlapping brain systems. However, spontaneous ToM tasks also show clear differences with explicit ToM tasks.

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Spontaneous Theory of Mind is reduced for nonhuman-like agents as compared to human-like agents

Bardi

Desmet

Braß

2018

Psychological Research

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Theory of Mind research has shown that we spontaneously take into account other's beliefs. In the current study, we investigate, with a spontaneous Theory of Mind (ToM) task, if this belief representation also applies to nonhuman-like agents. In a series of three experiments, we show here that we do not spontaneously take into account beliefs of nonhuman-like others, or at least we do it to a lesser extent than for human and human-like agents. Further, the experience we have with the other agent, in our case a dog, does not modulate spontaneous ToM: the same pattern of results was obtained when dog owners and no owners were compared. However, when more attention was attracted to the dog behavior, participants' behavior was influenced by the beliefs of the dog. In sum, spontaneous belief representation seems to be primarily restricted to human and human-like agents, but can be facilitated when more attention is drawn to a nonhuman-like agent.

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Brain activation for spontaneous and explicit false belief tasks overlaps: new fMRI evidence on belief processing and violation of expectation

Cited by 45 publications

References 65 publications

Do implicit and explicit belief processing share neural substrates?

Do implicit and explicit belief processing share neural substrates?

Defining the neural correlates of spontaneous theory of mind (ToM): An fMRI mega-analytic investigation

Spontaneous Theory of Mind is reduced for nonhuman-like agents as compared to human-like agents

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