Bio Branden J, Guterstam Arvid, Pinsk Mark, Wilterson Andrew I, Graziano Michael S A
Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA.
Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA; Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77, Solna, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Neurology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Neuropsychologia. 2022 Jul 4;171:108243. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108243. Epub 2022 Apr 28.
When people make inferences about other people's minds, called theory of mind (ToM), a cortical network becomes active. The right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is one of the most consistently responsive nodes in that network. Here we used a pictorial, reaction-time, ToM task to study brain activity in the TPJ and other cortical areas. Subjects were asked to take the perspective of a cartoon character and judge its knowledge of a visual display in front of it. The right TPJ showed evidence of encoding information about the implied visual knowledge of the cartoon head. When the subject was led to believe that the head could see a visual change take place, activity in the right TPJ significantly reflected that change. When the head could apparently not see the same visual change take place, activity in the right TPJ no longer significantly reflected that change. The subject could see the change in all cases; the critical factor that affected TPJ activity was whether the subject was led to think the cartoon character could see the change. We also found that whether the beliefs attributed to the cartoon head were true or false did not significantly affect activity in the present paradigm. These results suggest that the right TPJ may play a role in modeling the contents of the minds of others, perhaps more than it participates in evaluating the truth or falsity of that content.
当人们对他人的心理进行推理时，即所谓的心理理论（ToM），一个皮质网络会变得活跃。右侧颞顶联合区（TPJ）是该网络中反应最为一致的节点之一。在此，我们使用了一项基于图片的反应时心理理论任务，来研究TPJ及其他皮质区域的大脑活动。要求受试者从一个卡通角色的视角出发，判断其对面前视觉展示的了解情况。右侧TPJ显示出对卡通角色隐含视觉知识的信息进行编码的证据。当受试者被引导去相信该角色能看到视觉变化发生时，右侧TPJ的活动显著反映了这种变化。当该角色显然看不到同样的视觉变化发生时，右侧TPJ的活动不再显著反映这种变化。在所有情况下，受试者都能看到变化；影响TPJ活动的关键因素是受试者是否被引导去认为卡通角色能看到变化。我们还发现，赋予卡通角色的信念是真是假，在当前范式中对活动没有显著影响。这些结果表明，右侧TPJ可能在模拟他人心理内容方面发挥作用，或许其作用超过了参与评估该内容的真假。
