Tirapu-Ustárroz J, Pérez-Sayes G, Erekatxo-Bilbao M, Pelegrín-Valero C
Fundacion Argibide, Asociacion Dano Cerebral Navarra, Mutilva Baja, Spain.
Rev Neurol. 2007;44(8):479-89.
The brain is, basically speaking, a predictive machine, designed to reduce environmental incertitude. The theory of mind originated from a concept found in the pioneer works of Premack and Woodruf and refers to the ability to understand and predict the behaviour of other people, their knowledge, intentions, emotions and beliefs. This term was initially confined to the study of primatology and aetiology of autism, proposing that the cause of generalised disorders in development was an absence of theory of mind. In recent years however we have observed a great proliferation of studies on this complex concept and its affectation in various pathologies.
This work proposes dividing the concept of theory of mind into different processes and how to evaluate each one. It furthermore aims at establishing the brain structures related with each level of theory of mind. These levels of complexity are: facial recognition of emotions, first and second order beliefs, social usage of language, social behaviour and empathy.
To conclude, we reflect on certain relevant theoretic concepts on the matter such as the role of prefrontal cortex in the theory of mind, the categorical versus dimensional when we refer to this type of concept; modularity or neural systems, emotional and social intelligence versus cognitive intelligence or the role of bi-directionality in these complex cognitive processes.
从根本上讲，大脑是一台预测机器，旨在减少环境的不确定性。心理理论起源于普雷马克和伍德拉夫开创性著作中的一个概念，指的是理解和预测他人行为、他们的知识、意图、情感和信念的能力。这个术语最初局限于灵长类动物学和自闭症病因学的研究，提出发展中普遍存在的障碍的原因是缺乏心理理论。然而，近年来，我们观察到关于这个复杂概念及其在各种病理学中的影响的研究大量涌现。
这项工作提出将心理理论的概念分为不同的过程以及如何评估每个过程。此外，它旨在确定与心理理论的每个层次相关的脑结构。这些复杂程度的层次包括：面部情绪识别、一阶和二阶信念、语言的社会运用、社会行为和同理心。
总之，我们思考了关于这个问题的某些相关理论概念，例如前额叶皮层在心理理论中的作用、当我们提及这类概念时的分类与维度；模块化或神经系统、情感和社会智力与认知智力的关系，或者双向性在这些复杂认知过程中的作用。
