Do implicit and explicit belief processing share neural substrates?

Naughtin, Claire K.; Horne, Kristina; Schneider, Dana; Venini, Dustin; York, Ashley; Dux, Paul E.

doi:10.1002/hbm.23700

Cited by 41 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…However, activation in frontal areas also emerged, namely, the right middle and inferior frontal gyri (MFG, IFG). These findings are in agreement with those reported in previous research finding MFG activity during both spontaneous (Naughtin et al, 2017) and explicit ToM (Rothmayr et al, 2011;Sommer et al, 2007). The IFG is another area involved in attentional mechanisms, especially attention switching (Hedge et al, 2015), thus activating when a discrepancy in the observed situation, such as a belief of another person that differs from our own, catches our attention.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

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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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

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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“…known about the neural structures involved in implicit ToM tasks. Neural activation for implicit and explicit ToM tasks have only been compared in adults thus far (15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Adults might engage in explicit verbal ToM while watching nonverbal ToM videos, however, possibly confounding brain regions for implicit and explicit ToM processes.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adults might engage in explicit verbal ToM while watching nonverbal ToM videos, however, possibly confounding brain regions for implicit and explicit ToM processes. Most of these studies have emphasized overlapping brain regions but have studied activation for implicit ToM only within the regions of interest defined by explicit ToM tasks (15)(16)(17), making it impossible to detect regions that differ from those recruited for explicit ToM. However, a recent multistudy analysis comparing whole-brain activation for implicit and explicit ToM tasks found a number of distinct brain regions for implicit ToM and an overlap with explicit ToM only in the right (R) TPJ (19).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Two systems for thinking about others’ thoughts in the developing brain

Wiesmann

Friederici

Singer

et al. 2020

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

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Human social interaction crucially relies on the ability to infer what other people think. Referred to as Theory of Mind (ToM), this ability has long been argued to emerge around 4 y of age when children start passing traditional verbal ToM tasks. This developmental dogma has recently been questioned by nonverbal ToM tasks passed by infants younger than 2 y of age. How do young children solve these tests, and what is their relation to the later-developing verbal ToM reasoning? Are there two different systems for nonverbal and verbal ToM, and when is the developmental onset of mature adult ToM? To address these questions, we related markers of cortical brain structure (i.e., cortical thickness and surface area) of 3- and 4-y-old children to their performance in novel nonverbal and traditional verbal TM tasks. We showed that verbal ToM reasoning was supported by cortical surface area and thickness of the precuneus and temporoparietal junction, classically involved in ToM in adults. Nonverbal ToM reasoning, in contrast, was supported by the cortical structure of a distinct and independent neural network including the supramarginal gyrus also involved in emotional and visual perspective taking, action observation, and social attention or encoding biases. This neural dissociation suggests two systems for reasoning about others’ minds—mature verbal ToM that emerges around 4 y of age, whereas nonverbal ToM tasks rely on different earlier-developing possibly social-cognitive processes.

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“…Only a few studies have investigated the neural bases of spontaneous or implicit ToM, with inconsistent results ( Kovács et al , 2014 ; Schneider et al , 2014b ; Hyde et al , 2015 ; Bardi et al , 2017a ; Naughtin et al , 2017 ). Schneider et al (2014b ) showed that during a spontaneous ToM task, only the left STS and posterior cingulate (PC), but not the rTPJ, showed the typical pattern of activity (false belief > true belief) commonly found for explicit ToM tasks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Repetitive TMS of the temporo-parietal junction disrupts participant’s expectations in a spontaneous Theory of Mind task

Bardi¹,

Six

Braß³

2017

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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A recent debate about Theory of Mind (ToM) concerns whether spontaneous and explicit mentalizing are based on the same mechanisms. However, only a few neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural bases of spontaneous ToM, with inconsistent results. The present study had two goals: first, to investigate whether the right Temporo-Parietal Junction (rTPJ) is crucially involved in spontaneous ToM and second, to gain insight into the role of the rTPJ in ToM. For the first time, we applied rTMS to the rTPJ while participants were engaged in a spontaneous false belief task. Participants watched videos of a scene including an agent who acquires a true or false belief about the location of an object. At the end of the movie, participants reacted to the presence of the object. Results show that, during stimulation of the control site, RTs were affected by both the participant’s expectations and the belief of the agent. Stimulation of the rTPJ significantly modulated task performance, supporting the idea that spontaneous ToM, as well as explicit ToM, relies on TPJ activity. However, we did not observe a disruption of the representation of the agent’s belief. Rather, the stimulation interfered with participant’s predictions, supporting the idea that rTPJ is crucially involved in self-other distinction.

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Do implicit and explicit belief processing share neural substrates?

Cited by 41 publications

References 69 publications

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

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

Two systems for thinking about others’ thoughts in the developing brain

Repetitive TMS of the temporo-parietal junction disrupts participant’s expectations in a spontaneous Theory of Mind task

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