Understanding orbitofrontal contributions to theory-of-mind reasoning: Implications for autism

Sabbagh, Mark A.

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2003.04.002

Cited by 296 publications

(207 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…In the typical brain, whereas processing of language occurs in the speech areas of the left hemisphere, processing prosody happens in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (extraction of specific acoustic cues from complex speech signals), and the dorsolateral and orbitobasal frontal areas (evaluation of emotional associations; Pell, 2006;Wildgruber et al, 2005). Therefore, if verbal ability is retained and used to compensate for prosodic and visual cue deficits among individuals with ASC, we might expect lower activation in the right hemisphere areas, but intact and perhaps increased activation in the left verbal areas (Sabbagh, 2004). This compensatory mechanism is likely to be utilized more the higher one's verbal abilities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Reading the Mind in Films” Task: Complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions

Golan

Baron‐Cohen

Hill

et al. 2006

Social Neuroscience

163

130

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Background: Individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have difficulties recognizing mental states in others. Most research has focused on recognition of basic emotions from faces and voices separately. This study reports the results of a new task, assessing recognition of complex emotions and mental states from social scenes taken from feature films. The film format arguably is more challenging and ecologically closer to real social situations. Sample and method: A group of adults with ASC (n0/22) were compared to a group of matched controls from the general population (n0/22). Participants were tested individually. Results: Overall, individuals with ASC performed significantly lower than controls. There was a positive correlation between verbal IQ and task scores. Using task scores, more than 90% of the participants were correctly allocated to their group. Item analysis showed that the errors individuals with ASC make when judging socioemotional information are subtle. Conclusions: This new test of complex emotion and mental state recognition reveals that adults with ASC have residual difficulties in this aspect of empathy. The use of language-based compensatory strategies for emotion recognition is discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Reading the Mind in Films” Task: Complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions

Golan

Baron‐Cohen

Hill

et al. 2006

Social Neuroscience

163

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…98). This skill requires a cooperative effort between the amygdala, which detects emotional significance, and the orbitofrontal cortex, which evaluates the functional significance of inputs from the amygdala in the context of a constantly changing social world (Loveland, 2001; see also Sabbagh, 2004;Vollm et al, 2006). In general, orbital frontal cortex and related areas of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) are critical for comparing past and present emotional salience, and for modulating amygdala activation in response to environmental changes (Rauch et al, 2006;Sotres-Bayon et al, 2004).…”

Section: Social Information Processing In Autismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intact emotion facilitation for nonsocial stimuli in autism: Is amygdala impairment in autism specific for social information?

South

Ozonoff

Suchy

et al. 2007

J Int Neuropsychol Soc

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Atypical amygdala development may play a key role in the emergence of social disability and other symptoms of autism (Baron-Cohen et al., 2000;Schultz, 2005). The mechanisms by which this may occur have received little attention, however, and most support from behavioral and imaging studies has been concerned with socially relevant stimuli such as faces. Given the complexity of amygdala function and its known role in many other emotional tasks, we examined whether individuals with autism would demonstrate impaired performance on several tasks that have been shown to require activation of the amygdala but that do not have any explicit social meaning. Relative to a typical comparison group matched for age and IQ, our sample of 37 adolescents and adults with autism (mean age 5 19.7 years) demonstrated equivalent facilitation for perception and learning of emotionally relevant stimuli. On each of four tasks, there were significant main effects of emotion condition on performance for both groups. Future research regarding atypical amygdala function and emotion processing in autism should consider whether the response to nonsocial emotion factors (including negative valence or high arousal) may be intact, despite difficulties in responding to socially relevant stimuli. (JINS, 2008, 14, 42-54.)

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“…The social-perceptual component is especially related to right hemisphere medial temporal and orbitofrontal areas, whilst the social-cognitive component relies on a separate left hemisphere circuit involving medial frontal areas (Siegal & Varley, 2002;Sabbagh, 2004), and the temporoparietal junction (Samson, Apperly, Chiavarino, & Humphreys, 2004). The two components of ToM can also be dissociated neuropsychologically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two components of ToM seem to involve distinct neural structures, as evidenced by ERP, imaging and lesion evidence (Sabbagh, 2004). The social-perceptual component is especially related to right hemisphere medial temporal and orbitofrontal areas, whilst the social-cognitive component relies on a separate left hemisphere circuit involving medial frontal areas (Siegal & Varley, 2002;Sabbagh, 2004), and the temporoparietal junction (Samson, Apperly, Chiavarino, & Humphreys, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, ToM appears to consist of several dissociable components. In particular, there are grounds for distinguishing between a social-perceptual component and a social-cognitive component (Sabbagh, 2004;Tager-Flusberg & Sullivan, 2000). The social-perceptual component of ToM is the ability to detect the mental states of others using immediately available cues such as facial expressions and bodily movements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Agreeableness is related to social‐cognitive, but not social‐perceptual, theory of mind

2008

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We hypothesise on a number of grounds that the personality dimension of Agreeableness may be associated with inter-individual differences in theory of mind (ToM) functioning. However, it is important to distinguish social-perceptual from social-cognitive ToM. Previous findings on ToM in psychopathic individuals, sex differences in ToM and the associations between ToM and social relationships, all suggest that social-cognitive ToM is more likely than social-perceptual ToM to relate to Agreeableness. In separate empirical studies, we find that Agreeableness is substantially correlated with socialcognitive ToM performance, but uncorrelated with social-perceptual ToM performance. We suggest that the propensity or motivation to attend to the mental states of others may be central to the personality dimension of Agreeableness.

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Understanding orbitofrontal contributions to theory-of-mind reasoning: Implications for autism

Cited by 296 publications

References 50 publications

The “Reading the Mind in Films” Task: Complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions

The “Reading the Mind in Films” Task: Complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions

Intact emotion facilitation for nonsocial stimuli in autism: Is amygdala impairment in autism specific for social information?

Agreeableness is related to social‐cognitive, but not social‐perceptual, theory of mind

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