Chrome Extension
WeChat Mini Program
Use on ChatGLM

Investigation of the neural correlates of mentalizing through the Dynamic Inference Task, a new naturalistic task of social cognition.

NeuroImage(2021)

Cited 7|Views12
No score
Abstract
Understanding others' intentions requires both the identification of social cues (e.g., emotional facial expressions, gaze direction) and the attribution of a mental state to another. The neural substrates of these processes have often been studied separately, and results are heterogeneous, in part attributable to the variety of paradigms used. The aim of the present study was to explore the neural regions underlying these sociocognitive processes, using a novel naturalistic task in which participants engage with human protagonists featured in videos. A total of 51 right-handed volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing the Dynamic Inference Task (DIT), manipulating the degree of inference (high vs. low), the presence of emotion (emotional vs. nonemotional), and gaze direction (direct vs. averted). High nonemotional inference elicited neural activation in temporal regions encompassing the right posterior superior temporal sulcus. The presence (vs. absence) of emotion in the high-inference condition elicited a bilateral pattern of activation in internal temporal areas around the amygdala and orbitofrontal structures, as well as activation in the right dorsomedial part of the superior frontal gyrus and the left precuneus. On account of its dynamic, naturalistic approach, the DIT seems a suitable task for exploring social interactions and the way we interact with others, both in nonclinical and clinical populations.
More
Translated text
Key words
Mentalizing,Dynamic,Functional MRI,Theory of mind,Emotion processing,Gaze direction,Second-person neuroscience
AI Read Science
Must-Reading Tree
Example
Generate MRT to find the research sequence of this paper
Chat Paper
Summary is being generated by the instructions you defined