Frontal, Parietal, and Temporal Brain Areas Are Differentially Activated When Disambiguating Potential Objects of Joint Attention

Kraemer, Peter M.; Görner, M.; Ramezanpour, Hamidreza; Dicke, Peter W.; Thier, Peter

doi:10.1523/eneuro.0437-19.2020

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The latter notion gets further support from the massive bidirectional connections of the STS with a range of higher-order brain areas such as the ventral and medial frontal cortex, lateral prefrontal and premotor areas, the parietal cortex, and mesial temporal regions ( Seltzer and Pandya, 1989 , 1994 ), strategically placing it as a functional link between early visual areas and higher order areas. For example, integrating different modalities of information, such as vision and audition, is highly beneficial for disambiguating social decision processes ( Kraemer et al, 2020 ). Another example is facial expression recognition which builds upon the ability to combine biological motion and facial information ( Fisher and Freiwald, 2015 ).…”

Section: Visual Processing In the Sts And It Cortexmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of temporal cortex in the control of attention

Ramezanpour

Fallah

2022

Current Research in Neurobiology

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Section: Visual Processing In the Sts And It Cortexmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of temporal cortex in the control of attention

Ramezanpour

Fallah

2022

Current Research in Neurobiology

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“…These areas were slightly more anterior than the gaze-following region of the posterior superior temporal sulcus identified in humans ( Materna et al, 2008 ; Marquardt et al, 2017 ) emphasizing the homologies between humans and non-human primates. More recently, Kraemer et al (2020) have shown that the human lateral intraparietal sulcus and the inferior frontal junction contribute spatial information to gaze following. While neuroimaging studies in humans can highlight the location of large groups of neurons that become active during gaze following, single neuron recording in humans and non-human primates can identify the specific contribution of the neurons in these areas to gaze following and joint attention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social engagement revealed by gaze following in third-party observers of simulated social conflict

et al. 2022

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Humans and non-human primates can allocate visual attention to areas of high interest in their visual field based on the behaviors of their social partners. Allocation of attention is particularly important for third-party observers of social interactions. By following the gaze of interacting individuals, the observer can obtain information about the mental states, emotions, and intentions of others. We presented three adult monkeys (Macaca mulatta) with videos of simulated social interactions and quantified their eye movements to determine which observed behaviors were most conducive to gaze following. Social interactions were simulated by juxtaposing two videos depicting a threatening and an appeasing individual facing each other, with the timing of the facial and bodily displays adjusted to mimic an exchange of social signals. Socially meaningful facial displays combined with full body movements significantly enhanced the probability of gaze following and joint attention. Despite the synthetic nature of these interactions, the facial and bodily displays of the submissive individual elicited significantly more joint-attention than gaze-following saccades, suggesting a preferential allocation of attention to the recipients of threatening displays. Temporal alignment of gaze following and joint attention to the frames of each video showed numerous clusters of significant increases in the frequency of these saccades. These clusters suggest that some videos contained signals that can induce a quasi-automatic redirection of the observer’s attention. However, these saccades occurred only on a fraction of the viewings, and we have documented large inter-individual variations. All viewers produced sequences of joint attention saccades (check-backs) shifting their attention between the two monkeys as though monitoring the simulated emitting-receiving cycle of social signals. These sequences reflect the viewer’s interest in monitoring the ongoing exchange of agonistic and affiliative displays. It appears that in macaque monkeys, the scanpaths of third-party observers of simulated social interactions are informed by social-cognitive processes suggestive of mentalizing.

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“…The Gaze Following Patch (GFP) is a circumscribed region in the posterior part of the temporal cortex which was discovered in healthy human subjects that participated in fMRI experiments in which the task was to use the gaze direction of a demonstrator to identify a target object among distractors. 1–5 In contrast with the respective control condition, iris-color mapping in which the observer had to shift gaze to an object whose color corresponded to the color of the demonstrator’s iris, the gaze-following condition yielded a significantly larger BOLD response within the GFP. This preference for gaze direction suggests that the GFP might be the neural realization of Baron-Cohen’ ss Eye Direction Detector (EDD).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Gaze and Arrows: does the Gaze Following Patch in the posterior temporal cortex differentiate social and symbolic spatial cues?

Görner,

Ramzanpour,

Dicke

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The Gaze Following Patch (GFP) is located in the posterior temporal cortex and has been described as a cortical module dedicated to processing other people's gaze direction in a domain-specific manner. Thus, it appears to be the neural correlate of Baron-Cohen's Eye-Direction Detector (EDD) which is one of the core modules in his Mindreading System - a neurocognitive model for the Theory of Mind concept. Inspired by Jerry Fodor's ideas on the modularity of the mind, Baron-Cohen proposed that, among other things, the individual modules are domain-specific. In the case of the EDD this means that it exclusively processes eye-like stimuli to extract gaze direction and that other stimuli, that may carry directional information as well, are processed elsewhere. If the GFP is indeed EDD's neural correlate it must meet this expectation. To test this, we compared the GFP's BOLD activity during gaze-direction following with the activity during arrow-direction following. Contrary to the expectation based on the assumption of domain specificity we did not find a differentiation between gaze and arrow-direction following. In fact, we were not able to reproduce the GFP as presented in previous studies. A possible explanation is that in the present study - unlike previous work -, the gaze stimuli did not contain an obvious change of direction that represented a visual motion. Hence, the critical stimulus component responsible for the identification of the GFP in previous experiments might have been visual motion.

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Frontal, Parietal, and Temporal Brain Areas Are Differentially Activated When Disambiguating Potential Objects of Joint Attention

Cited by 8 publications

References 29 publications

The role of temporal cortex in the control of attention

The role of temporal cortex in the control of attention

Social engagement revealed by gaze following in third-party observers of simulated social conflict

Gaze and Arrows: does the Gaze Following Patch in the posterior temporal cortex differentiate social and symbolic spatial cues?

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