Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging, London, UK.
Annu Rev Psychol. 2012;63:287-313. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100449. Epub 2011 Aug 11.
Social animals including humans share a range of social mechanisms that are automatic and implicit and enable learning by observation. Learning from others includes imitation of actions and mirroring of emotions. Learning about others, such as their group membership and reputation, is crucial for social interactions that depend on trust. For accurate prediction of others' changeable dispositions, mentalizing is required, i.e., tracking of intentions, desires, and beliefs. Implicit mentalizing is present in infants less than one year old as well as in some nonhuman species. Explicit mentalizing is a meta-cognitive process and enhances the ability to learn about the world through self-monitoring and reflection, and may be uniquely human. Meta-cognitive processes can also exert control over automatic behavior, for instance, when short-term gains oppose long-term aims or when selfish and prosocial interests collide. We suggest that they also underlie the ability to explicitly share experiences with other agents, as in reflective discussion and teaching. These are key in increasing the accuracy of the models of the world that we construct.
社交动物包括人类在内，拥有一系列自动的、内隐的社交机制，这些机制使通过观察进行学习成为可能。从他人那里学习包括模仿行为和情感共鸣。了解他人，如他们的群体归属和声誉，对于依赖信任的社交互动至关重要。为了准确预测他人多变的性格，需要进行心理理论，即跟踪意图、欲望和信念。内隐心理理论存在于不到一岁的婴儿以及一些非人类物种中。外显心理理论是一种元认知过程，通过自我监控和反思增强了了解世界的能力，可能是人类所特有的。元认知过程还可以控制自动行为，例如，当短期收益与长期目标相矛盾时，或者当自私和利他利益发生冲突时。我们认为，它们也是与其他主体明确分享经验的能力的基础，例如在反思性讨论和教学中。这些对于提高我们构建的世界模型的准确性至关重要。
