Baron-Cohen S, Ring H, Moriarty J, Schmitz B, Costa D, Ell P
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge.
Br J Psychiatry. 1994 Nov;165(5):640-9. doi: 10.1192/bjp.165.5.640.
The mind's ability to think about the mind has attracted substantial research interest in cognitive science in recent decades, as 'theory of mind'. No research has attempted to identify the brain basis of this ability, probably because it involves several separate processes. As a first step, we investigated one component process-the ability to recognise mental state terms.
In Experiment 1, we tested a group of children with autism (known to have theory of mind deficits) and a control group of children with mental handicap, for their ability to recognise mental state terms in a word list. This was to test if the mental state recognition task was related to traditional theory of mind tests. In Experiment 2, we investigated if in the normal brain, recognition of mental state terms might be localised. The procedure employed single photon emission computerised tomography (SPECT) in normal adult volunteers. We tested the prediction (based on available neurological and animal lesion studies) that there would be increased activation in the orbito-frontal cortex during this task, relative to a control condition, and relative to an adjacent frontal area (frontal-polar cortex).
In Experiment 1, the group with autism performed significantly worse than the group without autism. In Experiment 2, there was increased cerebral blood flow during the mental state recognition task in the right orbito-frontal cortex relative to the left frontal-polar region.
This simple mental state recognition task appears to relate to theory of mind, in that both are impaired in autism. The SPECT results implicate the orbito-frontal cortex as the basis of this ability.
近几十年来，大脑思考自身的能力作为“心理理论”，在认知科学领域引发了大量研究兴趣。此前尚无研究试图确定这一能力的脑基础，可能是因为它涉及多个独立过程。作为第一步，我们研究了其中一个组成过程——识别心理状态术语的能力。
在实验1中，我们测试了一组患有自闭症的儿童（已知存在心理理论缺陷）和一组智力障碍儿童对照组，看他们识别单词列表中心理状态术语的能力。这是为了检验心理状态识别任务是否与传统心理理论测试相关。在实验2中，我们研究了在正常大脑中，心理状态术语的识别是否可能定位。该程序在正常成年志愿者中采用单光子发射计算机断层扫描（SPECT）。我们检验了这样一个预测（基于现有的神经学和动物损伤研究）：相对于对照条件以及相对于相邻的额叶区域（额极皮质），在执行此任务期间眶额皮质的激活会增加。
在实验1中，自闭症组的表现明显比非自闭症组差。在实验2中，相对于左侧额极区域，右侧眶额皮质在心理状态识别任务期间脑血流量增加。
这项简单的心理状态识别任务似乎与心理理论相关，因为在自闭症中这两者都会受损。SPECT结果表明眶额皮质是这一能力的基础。
