Zimmermann Kristin Marie, Schmidt Kirsten Daniela, Gronow Franziska, Sommer Jens, Leweke Frank, Jansen Andreas
Laboratory for Multimodal Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany; Department of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation, Hospital zum Heiligen Geist, Academic Teaching Hospital of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany; Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior (CMBB), University of Marburg and Justus Liebig University Giessen.
Laboratory for Multimodal Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
Neuroimage. 2021 Sep;238:118223. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118223. Epub 2021 Jun 4.
Studies on social cognition often use complex visual stimuli to asses neural processes attributed to abilities like "mentalizing" or "Theory of Mind" (ToM). During the processing of these stimuli, eye gaze, however, shapes neural signal patterns. Individual differences in neural operations on social cognition may therefore be obscured if individuals' gaze behavior differs systematically. These obstacles can be overcome by the combined analysis of neural signal and natural viewing behavior. Here, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with eye-tracking to examine effects of unconstrained gaze on neural ToM processes in healthy individuals with differing levels of emotional awareness, i.e. alexithymia. First, as previously described for emotional tasks, people with higher alexithymia levels look less at eyes in both ToM and task-free viewing contexts. Further, we find that neural ToM processes are not affected by individual differences in alexithymia per se. Instead, depending on alexithymia levels, gaze on critical stimulus aspects reversely shapes the signal in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and anterior temporoparietal junction (TPJ) as distinct nodes of the ToM system. These results emphasize that natural selective attention affects fMRI patterns well beyond the visual system. Our study implies that, whenever using a task with multiple degrees of freedom in scan paths, ignoring the latter might obscure important conclusions.
社会认知研究通常使用复杂的视觉刺激来评估归因于“心理化”或“心理理论”（ToM）等能力的神经过程。然而，在处理这些刺激时，目光注视会塑造神经信号模式。如果个体的注视行为存在系统性差异，那么社会认知神经操作中的个体差异可能会被掩盖。通过对神经信号和自然观看行为进行综合分析，可以克服这些障碍。在这里，我们将功能磁共振成像（fMRI）与眼动追踪相结合，以研究无约束注视对不同情绪觉察水平（即述情障碍）的健康个体神经ToM过程的影响。首先，如先前在情感任务中所描述的，述情障碍水平较高的人在ToM和无任务观看情境中对眼睛的注视都较少。此外，我们发现神经ToM过程本身不受述情障碍个体差异的影响。相反，根据述情障碍水平，对关键刺激方面的注视会反向塑造内侧前额叶皮层（MPFC）和颞顶联合前部（TPJ）作为ToM系统不同节点的信号。这些结果强调，自然选择性注意对fMRI模式的影响远远超出视觉系统。我们的研究表明，每当在扫描路径中使用具有多个自由度的任务时，忽略后者可能会掩盖重要结论。
