Hartwright Charlotte E, Apperly Ian A, Hansen Peter C
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK; School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK.
Neuropsychologia. 2015 Jan;67:183-92. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.12.015. Epub 2014 Dec 16.
The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) has been implicated in studies of both executive and social functions. Recent meta-analyses suggest that vlPFC plays an important but little understood role in Theory of Mind (ToM). Converging neuropsychological and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) evidence suggests that this may reflect inhibition of self-perspective. The present study adapted an extensively published ToM localizer to evaluate the role of vlPFC in inhibition of self-perspective. The classic false belief, false photograph vignettes that comprise the localizer were modified to generate high and low salience of self-perspective. Using a factorial design, the present study identified a behavioural and neural cost associated with having a highly salient self-perspective that was incongruent with the representational content. Importantly, vlPFC only differentiated between high versus low salience of self-perspective when representing mental state content. No difference was identified for non-mental representation. This result suggests that different control processes are required to represent competing mental and non-mental content.
腹外侧前额叶皮层（vlPFC）在执行功能和社会功能的研究中均有涉及。最近的荟萃分析表明，vlPFC在心理理论（ToM）中起着重要但鲜为人知的作用。越来越多的神经心理学和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）证据表明，这可能反映了对自我视角的抑制。本研究采用了广泛发表的ToM定位器，以评估vlPFC在抑制自我视角中的作用。构成该定位器的经典错误信念、错误照片 vignettes 被修改，以产生自我视角的高显著性和低显著性。本研究采用析因设计，确定了与具有与表征内容不一致的高度显著自我视角相关的行为和神经代价。重要的是，vlPFC仅在表征心理状态内容时，才区分自我视角的高显著性与低显著性。对于非心理表征，未发现差异。这一结果表明，表征相互竞争的心理和非心理内容需要不同的控制过程。
