School of Psychology, Bangor University, Brigantia Building, Bangor, Gwynedd, United Kingdom.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2013 May;25(5):670-84. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00345. Epub 2012 Dec 18.
A hallmark of human social interaction is the ability to consider other people's mental states, such as what they see, believe, or desire. Prior neuroimaging research has predominantly investigated the neural mechanisms involved in computing one's own or another person's perspective and largely ignored the question of perspective selection. That is, which brain regions are engaged in the process of selecting between self and other perspectives? To address this question, the current fMRI study used a behavioral paradigm that required participants to select between competing visual perspectives. We provide two main extensions to current knowledge. First, we demonstrate that brain regions within dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices respond in a viewpoint-independent manner during the selection of task-relevant over task-irrelevant perspectives. More specifically, following the computation of two competing visual perspectives, common regions of frontoparietal cortex are engaged to select one's own viewpoint over another's as well as select another's viewpoint over one's own. Second, in the absence of conflict between the content of competing perspectives, we showed a reduced engagement of frontoparietal cortex when judging another's visual perspective relative to one's own. This latter finding provides the first brain-based evidence for the hypothesis that, in some situations, another person's perspective is automatically and effortlessly computed, and thus, less cognitive control is required to select it over one's own perspective. In doing so, we provide stronger evidence for the claim that we not only automatically compute what other people see but also, in some cases, we compute this even before we are explicitly aware of our own perspective.
人类社会互动的一个特点是能够考虑他人的心理状态，例如他们看到、相信或想要的东西。先前的神经影像学研究主要研究了计算自己或他人视角所涉及的神经机制，而在很大程度上忽略了视角选择的问题。也就是说，哪些大脑区域参与了在自我和他人视角之间进行选择的过程？为了解决这个问题，目前的 fMRI 研究使用了一种行为范式，要求参与者在竞争的视觉视角之间进行选择。我们提供了对当前知识的两个主要扩展。首先，我们证明在选择与任务相关的视角而不是与任务不相关的视角时，背外侧前额叶和顶叶皮层内的大脑区域以与视角无关的方式做出反应。更具体地说，在计算出两个竞争的视觉视角之后，额顶叶皮层的共同区域被激活，以选择自己的视角而不是他人的视角，或者选择他人的视角而不是自己的视角。其次，在没有竞争视角内容冲突的情况下，当相对于自己的视角来判断他人的视觉视角时，我们发现额顶叶皮层的参与减少。后一种发现为以下假设提供了第一个基于大脑的证据，即在某些情况下，另一个人的视角是自动且毫不费力地计算出来的，因此，与选择自己的视角相比，需要较少的认知控制来选择他人的视角。这样做，我们为我们不仅自动计算其他人看到的内容，而且在某些情况下，我们甚至在自己明确意识到自己的视角之前就计算出这些内容的说法提供了更强的证据。
