Biology subjects

Guterstam, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Guterstam, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Right Temporoparietal Junction Encodes Mental Experience of Others More Than Evaluating False Versus True Belief

When people make inferences about other peoples minds, called theory of mind (ToM), a network in the cerebral cortex becomes active. ToM experiments sometimes use the false belief task, in which subjects decide whether a story character believes A or B. The "false" belief occurs if the character believes A when B is true. We devised a version in which subjects judged whether a cartoon head "believed" a ball to be in box 1 or box 2. The task was a visual, reaction-time version of a ToM task. We proposed two alternative hypotheses. In hypothesis 1, cortical regions of interest within the ToM network should distinguish between false and true belief trials, reflecting outside information that the subjects have about the cartoon character. In hypothesis 2, the ToM network should distinguish between conditions only if the subjects think that the cartoon character can distinguish between the conditions, thus reflecting a model of the internal contents of the cartoon characters mind. The results supported hypothesis 2. Events that the cartoon could not "see" did not affect activity in the ToM network; the same events, when the cartoon could apparently "see" them, significantly affected activity in the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ). The results support the view that the right TPJ participates in modeling the mental states of others, rather than in evaluating the accuracy of the beliefs of others, and may help explain why previous experiments showed mixed results when directly comparing false belief to true belief conditions. Significance statementHow do we understand the minds of others? A specific network of areas in the human brain is known to emphasize building models of other peoples minds. In one traditional hypothesis, this network helps us distinguish whether someone elses beliefs are true or false. Here we show that the network is relatively insensitive to ones own, outside knowledge about whether someone elses beliefs are true or false. Instead, at least one node in the network appears to limit itself mainly to reconstructing the other persons point of view. This social cognition network may be more about empathy than about critical evaluation. ClassificationSocial Sciences - Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

A motion aftereffect from viewing other people's gaze

Recent work suggests that our brains may generate subtle, false motion signals streaming from other people to the objects of their attention, aiding social cognition. For instance, brief exposure to static images depicting other people gazing at objects made subjects slower at detecting subsequent motion in the direction of gaze, suggesting that looking at someone elses gaze caused a directional motion adaptation. Here we confirm, using a more stringent method, that viewing static images of another person gazing in a particular direction, at an object, produced motion aftereffects in the opposite direction. The aftereffect was manifested as a change in perceptual decision threshold for detecting left versus right motion. The effect disappeared when the person was looking away from the object. These findings suggest that the attentive gaze of others is encoded as an implied agent-to-object motion that is sufficiently robust to cause genuine motion aftereffects, though subtle enough to remain subthreshold.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Temporo-Parietal Cortex Involved in Modeling One's Own and Others' Attention

In a traditional view, in social cognition, attention is equated with gaze and people track attention by tracking other peoples gaze. Here we used fMRI to test whether the brain represents attention in a richer manner. People read stories describing an agent (either oneself or someone else) directing attention to an object in one of two ways: either internally directed (endogenous) or externally induced (exogenous). We used multivoxel pattern analysis to examine how brain areas within the theory-of-mind network encoded attention type and agent type. Brain activity patterns in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) showed significant decoding of information about endogenous versus exogenous attention. The left TPJ, left superior temporal sulcus (STS), precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) significantly decoded agent type (self versus other). These findings show that the brain constructs a rich model of ones own and others attentional state, possibly aiding theory of mind. Impact statementThis study used fMRI to show that the human brain encodes other peoples attention in enough richness to distinguish whether that attention was directed exogenously (stimulus-driven) or endogenously (internally driven).

neuroscience↗