Imaging the Intentional Stance in a Competitive Game

Abstract

The "intentional stance" is the disposition to treat an entity as a rational agent, possessing particular beliefs, desires, and intentions, in order to interpret and predict it's behavior. The intentional stance is a component of a broader social cognitive function, mentalizing. Here we report a study that investigates the neural substrates of "on-line" mentalizing, using PET, by asking volunteers to second-guess an opponent. In order to identify brain activity specifically associated with adoption of an intentional stance, we used a paradigm that allowed tight control of other cognitive demands. Volunteers played a computerised version of the children's game "stone, paper, scissors." In the mentalizing condition volunteers believed they were playing against the experimenter. In the comparison condition, volunteers believed they were playing against a computer. In fact, during the actual scanning, the "opponent" produced a random sequence in both conditions. The only difference was the attitude, or stance, adopted by the volunteer. Only one region was more active when volunteers adopted the intentional stance. This was in anterior paracingulate cortex (bilaterally). This region has been activated in a number of previous studies involving mentalizing. However, this is the first study suggesting a specific link between activity in this brain region and the adoption of an intentional stance.

Game theory and neural basis of social decision making

“…Many of neuroimaging studies on experimental games have found that social interactions with human players produce stronger activations in several brain areas, often in the anterior paracingulate cortex (Fig 3c), than similar interactions with computer players [84][85][86] . Assuming that more sophisticated inferences are used to deal with human players than with computer players, such findings might provide some clues on the cortical areas specialized for theory of mind.…”

Perceived live interaction modulates the developing social brain

“…Schilbach et al, 2010;Redcay et al, 2012), and play games against a human as opposed to a computer (e.g. McCabe et al, 2001;Gallagher et al, 2002;Coricelli and Nagel, 2009). Such studies, however, often involve either explicit mentalizing, as during strategy games, or do not directly compare stimuli that differ solely on interactive context.…”

Children's and adults’ neural bases of verbal and nonverbal ‘theory of mind’

“…A number of neuroimaging studies have explored ToM in adults and implicated the mPFC as being important for ToM processing (Brunet, Sarfati, Hardy-Baylé, & Decety, 2000;Fletcher et al, 1995;Gallagher et al, 2000;Gallagher, Jack, Roepstorff, & Frith, 2002;Goel, Grafman, Sadato, & Hallett, 1995;Happé et al, 1996;Vogeley et al, 2001). There has been some evidence for modality-dependent ToM processing in laterality effects seen in ToM-related brain activity.…”