School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871, China.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2021 Oct;21(5):960-969. doi: 10.3758/s13415-021-00899-5. Epub 2021 Apr 27.
Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to infer others' mental states. In our everyday lives, we need to interact constantly and appropriately with others. Not only is ToM involved in understanding others' mental states (other-oriented mental inferences), but it also helps to keep our own mental states (self-oriented mental inferences). In this study, we designed a false-belief task using event-related potential (ERP) measures to investigate the dynamic differences between the two types of mental inferences. In the false-belief task, participants were prompted with a cue to attribute a belief to either themselves (self-oriented) or another person (other-oriented). Results showed that other-oriented false-belief attribution elicited a larger late positive component (LPC; 320440 ms post-cue onset) than the one elicited by self-oriented attribution at bilateral parieto-occipital electrodes, and also a larger late negative component (LNC; 380500 ms post-cue onset) at frontal-central electrodes. In addition, the difference in amplitude of LPC between the two types of false-belief attribution was positively correlated with self-reported autistic traits measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Based on prior literature, we propose that the LPC and LNC reflect the processes of self-other distinction and conflict control, respectively. Moreover, the difficulty in distinguishing other from the self is related to one's degree of autistic traits.
心理理论（Theory of mind，ToM）是指推断他人心理状态的能力。在我们的日常生活中，我们需要不断地与他人进行适当的互动。ToM 不仅涉及理解他人的心理状态（他人导向的心理推理），还有助于我们保持自己的心理状态（自我导向的心理推理）。在这项研究中，我们使用事件相关电位（ERP）测量设计了一个错误信念任务，以研究这两种心理推理之间的动态差异。在错误信念任务中，参与者被提示将信念归因于自己（自我导向）或他人（他人导向）。结果表明，与自我导向的归因相比，他人导向的错误信念归因在双侧顶枕叶电极上引发了更大的正晚成分（late positive component，LPC；在提示后 320440 毫秒），并且在额中央电极上引发了更大的负晚成分（late negative component，LNC；在提示后 380500 毫秒）。此外，两种错误信念归因之间的 LPC 振幅差异与自闭症特质问卷（Autism Spectrum Quotient，AQ）测量的自我报告自闭症特质呈正相关。基于先前的文献，我们提出 LPC 和 LNC 分别反映了自我与他人区分和冲突控制的过程。此外，将他人与自我区分开来的难度与一个人的自闭症特质程度有关。
