Mind Reading: Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind and Self-Perspective

Vogeley, Kai; Bussfeld, P.; Newen, Albert; Herrmann, Stefan; Happé, Francesca; Falkai, Peter; Maier, Wolfgang; Shah, N. Jon; Fink, Gereon R.; Zilles, Karl

doi:10.1006/nimg.2001.0789

Cited by 861 publications

(535 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(52 reference statements)

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“…In the current experiment, it is plausible that the participants devoted more effort to monitoring their own behaviors during the joint conditions in order to better disambiguate their own actions from those generated by their partner. This interpretation is consistent with other neuroimaging experiments suggesting that the PCu is part of the network used to determine a sense of agency (Vogeley et al, 2001;Vogeley and Fink, 2003).…”

Section: Joint Action and The Right Stsp/tpj And Pcusupporting

confidence: 92%

Anatomical substrates of cooperative joint-action in a continuous motor task: Virtual lifting and balancing

et al. 2008

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An emerging branch of social cognitive neuroscience attempts to unravel the critical cognitive mechanisms that enable humans to engage in joint action. In the current experiment, differences in brain activity in participants engaging in solitary action and joint action were identified using whole brain fMRI while participants performed a virtual barbalancing task either alone (S), or with the help of a partner in each of two separate joint-action conditions (isomorphic [J i ] and non-isomorphic [J n ]). Compared to the performing the task alone, BOLD signal was found to be stronger in both joint-action conditions at specific sites in the human mirror system (MNS). This activation pattern may reflect the demand on participants to simulate the actions of others, integrate their own actions with those of their partners, and compute appropriate responses. Increasing inter-dependence (complementarity) of movements being generated by cooperating individuals (J n N J i N S) was found to correlate with BOLD signal in the right anterior node of the MNS (pars opercularis), and the area around the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ). These data are relevant to current debates concerning the role of right IFG in complementary action, as well as evolving theories of joint action.

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Section: Joint Action and The Right Stsp/tpj And Pcusupporting

confidence: 92%

Anatomical substrates of cooperative joint-action in a continuous motor task: Virtual lifting and balancing

et al. 2008

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“…Finally, it is possible that the absence of DMPFC activation in the scrambled condition reflects a lack of perspective-taking or theory of mind processing. Numerous studies have observed DMPFC activation during tasks that require consideration of agents' beliefs, feelings or intentions (Castelli et al, 2000;Fletcher et al, 1995;Vogeley et al, 2001). In the context of discourse comprehension, Mason and Just (2006) have proposed that DMPFC serves as a "protagonist's perspective" network involved in decoding agents' intentions or goals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most commonly, narrative-level mechanisms are isolated by contrasting brain activation when reading connected sentences or stories with activation when reading sentences or stories that are unrelated or inconsistent to varying degrees (e.g., Ferstl et al, 2005;Ferstl andvon Cramon, 2001, 2002;Fletcher et al, 1995;Giraud, 2000;Hasson et al, 2007;Vogeley et al, 2001;Xu et al, 2005). The results of such investigations converge on a distributed network of cortical regions subserving discourse-level comprehension.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural substrates of narrative comprehension and memory

2008

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When reading a narrative, comprehension and retention of information benefit considerably from the use of situation models -coherent representations of the characters, locations, and activities described in the text. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the neural mechanisms supporting situation model processing. Participants read blocks of sentences that were either unrelated to one another or formed coherent narratives. A timecourse-based approach was used to identify regions that differentiated narrative-level comprehension from sentence-level comprehension. Most brain regions that showed modulation of activation during narrative-level comprehension were also modulated to a lesser extent during sentence-level comprehension, suggesting a shared reliance on general coherence-building mechanisms. However, tentative evidence was found for narrativespecific activation in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Additional analyses identified spatiotemporally distinct neural contributions to situation model processing, with posterior parietal regions supporting situation model construction and frontotemporal regions supporting situation model maintenance. Finally, a set of subsequent memory analyses demonstrated that the boost in comprehension and memory performance observed for coherent materials was attributable to the use of integrative situation models rather than lower-level differences in sentence-level or word-level encoding. These results clarify the functional contributions of distinct brain systems to situation model processing and their mapping onto existing psychological models of narrative comprehension.

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“…Indeed, information processing on these cognitive functions appears to be all but complete so that frontal lobe patients do not show any evidence of dysfunction when tested for them, either directly or with conventional intelligence tests (Brickner, 1936;Hebb, 1939). Rather than adding further detail to the analysis, the frontal cortex utilizes this highly processed information to enable still higher cognitive functions such as a self-construct (Keenan, Wheeler, Gallup, & Pascual-Leone, 2000;Vogeley, Kurthen, Falkai, & Maier, 1999), self-reflective consciousness (Courtney, Petit, Haxby, & Ungerleider, 1998;Vogeley et al, 2001), complex social function (Damasio, 1994), abstract thinking (e.g., Rylander, 1948), cognitive flexibility (Lhermitte, 1983;Lhermitte, Pillon, & Serdaru, 1986), planning (Norman & Shallice, 1986;Shallice & Burgess, 1991), willed action (Frith & Dolan, 1996), and theory of mind (Frith & Frith, 2001;Povinelli & Preuss, 1995;Stone, Baron-Cohen, & Knight, 1998).…”

Section: The Hierarchy Of Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional neuroanatomy of altered states of consciousness: The transient hypofrontality hypothesis

Dietrich

2003

Consciousness and Cognition

377

271

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It is the central hypothesis of this paper that the mental states commonly referred to as altered states of consciousness are principally due to transient prefrontal cortex deregulation. Supportive evidence from psychological and neuroscientific studies of dreaming, endurance running, meditation, daydreaming, hypnosis, and various druginduced states is presented and integrated. It is proposed that transient hypofrontality is the unifying feature of all altered states and that the phenomenological uniqueness of each state is the result of the differential viability of various frontal circuits. Using an evolutionary approach, consciousness is conceptualized as hierarchically ordered cognitive function. Higher-order structures perform increasingly integrative functions and thus contribute more sophisticated content. Although this implies a holistic approach to consciousness, such a functional hierarchy localizes the most sophisticated layers of consciousness in the zenithal higher-order structure: the prefrontal cortex. The hallmark of altered states of consciousness is the subtle modification of behavioral and cognitive functions that are typically ascribed to the prefrontal cortex. The theoretical framework presented yields a number of testable hypotheses.

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Mind Reading: Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind and Self-Perspective

Cited by 861 publications

References 40 publications

Anatomical substrates of cooperative joint-action in a continuous motor task: Virtual lifting and balancing

Anatomical substrates of cooperative joint-action in a continuous motor task: Virtual lifting and balancing

Neural substrates of narrative comprehension and memory

Functional neuroanatomy of altered states of consciousness: The transient hypofrontality hypothesis

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