Deconstructing and reconstructing theory of mind

Schaafsma, Sara M.; Pfaff, Donald W.; Spunt, Robert P.; Adolphs, Ralph

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.11.007

Cited by 405 publications

(322 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…It remains possible that, even in adulthood, the amygdala plays a key role in the bottom-up control of cortical networks for ToM use, but this role may be revealed only on tasks that are relatively implicit in their cognitive demands, such as nonverbal tasks. This suggestion highlights the more general theme that ToM is quite heterogeneous in its behavioral expression, operational definition, and neural correlates (28,35,36). A more comprehensive investigation, such as the one in the present paper but over a larger battery of ToM tasks, could help parse that heterogeneity into types that do not depend on the amygdala and types that may.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…At the outset, we clarify that the False-Belief Localizer does not exhaustively represent the range and complexity of the human capacity to reason about mental states (35). In fact, many different behavioral tasks have been used to manipulate mentalstate reasoning in previous neuroimaging studies (23,26), and recent evidence has demonstrated convincingly that these various tasks are not interchangeable manipulations of a single ToM capacity but rather modulate dissociable cortical networks (28,36).…”

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confidence: 83%

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Amygdala lesions do not compromise the cortical network for false-belief reasoning

Spunt

Elison

Dufour

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The amygdala plays an integral role in human social cognition and behavior, with clear links to emotion recognition, trust judgments, anthropomorphization, and psychiatric disorders ranging from social phobia to autism. A central feature of human social cognition is a theory-of-mind (ToM) that enables the representation other people's mental states as distinct from one's own. Numerous neuroimaging studies of the best studied use of ToM-false-belief reasoning-suggest that it relies on a specific cortical network; moreover, the amygdala is structurally and functionally connected with many components of this cortical network. It remains unknown whether the cortical implementation of any form of ToM depends on amygdala function. Here we investigated this question directly by conducting functional MRI on two patients with rare bilateral amygdala lesions while they performed a neuroimaging protocol standardized for measuring cortical activity associated with false-belief reasoning. We compared patient responses with those of two healthy comparison groups that included 480 adults. Based on both univariate and multivariate comparisons, neither patient showed any evidence of atypical cortical activity or any evidence of atypical behavioral performance; moreover, this pattern of typical cortical and behavioral response was replicated for both patients in a follow-up session. These findings argue that the amygdala is not necessary for the cortical implementation of ToM in adulthood and suggest a reevaluation of the role of the amygdala and its cortical interactions in human social cognition.theory-of-mind | amygdala | lesions | false-belief | fMRI

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

mentioning

confidence: 83%

Amygdala lesions do not compromise the cortical network for false-belief reasoning

Spunt

Elison

Dufour

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…We prefer the term psychological reasoning for two reasons (see also Schaafsma et al 2015). First, this term underscores the deep similarities between infants' psychological reasoning and their reasoning in other core domains of causal reasoning, such as physical and sociomoral reasoning (e.g., Baillargeon et al 2013Baillargeon et al , 2015.…”

Section: Implicit and Explicit Psychological Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological Reasoning in Infancy

Baillargeon

Scott

Bian

2016

Annu. Rev. Psychol.

211

152

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Adults routinely make sense of others' actions by inferring the mental states that underlie these actions. Over the past two decades, developmental researchers have made significant advances in understanding the origins of this ability in infancy. This evidence indicates that when infants observe an agent act in a simple scene, they infer the agent's mental states and then use these mental states, together with a principle of rationality (and its corollaries of efficiency and consistency), to predict and interpret the agent's subsequent actions and to guide their own actions toward the agent. In this review, we first describe the initial demonstrations of infants' sensitivity to the efficiency and consistency principles. We then examine how infants identify novel entities as agents. Next, we summarize what is known about infants' ability to reason about agents' motivational, epistemic, and counterfactual states. Finally, we consider alternative interpretations of these findings and discuss the current controversy about the relation between implicit and explicit psychological reasoning.

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“…However, a single perspective cannot tackle such a multilayered phenomenon as human behavior, whereas it may be useful to Bdecompose^ (Schaafsma et al, 2015) complexity starting from more basic neurobiological, neurophysiological, and neurocognitive components. Worth noting is that the DSM-5 strategy, driven by recent advances in genetics and neuroscience-in contrast to the descriptive and phenomenological approach of the DSM IV-is consistent with such a view (Regier, Kuhl, & Kupfer, 2013).…”

Section: Motor Cognition In Asd: Motor Anomalies Impacting On Social mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the putative neural correlates of the so-called Bmentalizing system^remain controversial in the literature (Fishman, Keown, Lincoln, Pineda, & Muller, 2014;Mainieri, Heim, Straube, Binkofski, & Kircher, 2013;Mitchell, 2008; for a meta-analysis, see Schurz, Radua, Aichhorn, Richlan, & Perner, 2014). Plausibly, these controversies may be due to the ambiguities of defining in operational terms the notion of ToM, and to the misleading idea that ToM is a unitary process (Bloom & German, 2000;Schaafsma, Pfaff, Spunt, & Adolphs, 2015). To overcome the idea that social cognition involves Bsocial metacognitionê xclusively (Gallese, 2007), a new approach has been proposed: a multilevel action understanding model that claims that we can understand others' actions through different, non-mutually exclusive, and non-competitive ways (Casartelli & Molteni, 2014;de Waal & Ferrari, 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

The motor way: Clinical implications of understanding and shaping actions with the motor system in autism and drug addiction

Casartelli

Chiamulera

2015

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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To understand others' minds is crucial for survival; however, it is quite puzzling how access to others' minds can be-to some extent-direct and not necessarily mediated by conceptual reasoning. Recent advances in neuroscience have led to hypothesize a role for motor circuits not only in controlling the elementary physical features of movement (e.g., force, direction, and amplitude), but also in understanding and shaping human behavior. The concept of Bmotor cognition^refers to these aspects, and neurophysiological, neuroimaging, and behavioral studies in human and nonhuman primates support this view. From a clinical perspective, motor cognition represents a challenge in several domains. A thorough investigation of the neural mechanisms mediating motor action/intention understanding and automatized/compulsive behaviors seems to be a promising way to tackle a range of neurodevelopmental and drug-related disorders. On the one hand, anomalies in motor cognition may have cascade effects on social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); on the other, motor cognition may help explain the pathophysiology of drug-seeking and drug-taking behaviors in the most severe phase of drug addiction (i.e., see drug dependence, motor low-order cue reactivity). This may represent a promising approach that could improve the efficacy of rehabilitative interventions. The only way to shed light on multifactorial disorders such as ASD and drug addiction is through the investigation of their multiple factors. This motor way can promote new theoretical and experimental perspectives that would help bridge the gap between the basic neuroscience approach and clinical practice.

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Deconstructing and reconstructing theory of mind

Cited by 405 publications

References 73 publications

Amygdala lesions do not compromise the cortical network for false-belief reasoning

Amygdala lesions do not compromise the cortical network for false-belief reasoning

Psychological Reasoning in Infancy

The motor way: Clinical implications of understanding and shaping actions with the motor system in autism and drug addiction

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