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Cited by 1,522Child and Animal Learning DevelopmentAction Observation and SynchronizationAutism Spectrum Disorder Research

Other minds in the brain: a functional imaging study of “theory of mind” in story comprehension.

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Fletcher, P·1995·Cognition
DOI 10.1016/0010-0277(95)00692-r
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Abstract

The ability of normal children and adults to attribute independent mental states to self and others in order to explain and predict behaviour ("theory of mind") has been a focus of much recent research. Autism is a biologically based disorder which appears to be characterised by a specific impairment in this "mentalising" process. The present paper reports a functional neuroimaging study with positron emission tomography in which we studied brain activity in normal volunteers while they performed story comprehension tasks necessitating the attribution of mental states. The resultant brain activity was compared with that measured in two control tasks: "physical" stories which did not require this mental attribution, and passages of unlinked sentences. Both story conditions, when compared to the unlinked sentences, showed significantly increased regional cerebral blood flow in the following regions: the temporal poles bilaterally, the left superior temporal gyrus and the posterior cingulate cortex. Comparison of the "theory of mind" stories with "physical" stores revealed a specific pattern of activation associated with mental state attribution: it was only this task which produced activation in the medial frontal gyrus on the left (Brodmann's area 8). This comparison also showed significant activation in the posterior cingulate cortex. These surprisingly clear-cut findings are discussed in relation to previous studies of brain activation during story comprehension. The localisation of brain regions involved in normal attribution of mental states and contextual problem solving is feasible and may have implication for the neural basis of autism.

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  • Activity in posterior right STG was evident during both dialogic scenarios and ToM reasoning, in a region previously linked to both ToM and imagery for personal perspectives.

    “Activity in posterior right STG was evident during both dialogic scenarios and ToM reasoning, in a region previously linked to both ToM (Fletcher et al., 1995) and imagery for personal perspectives (Ruby and Decety, 2001).”

    From The brain's conversation with itself: neural substrates of dialogic inner speech (2016) · cites this paper as Fletcher et al., 1995

    The Discussion reports activation of the left posterior superior temporal gyrus during both mentalising and non-mentalising stories, not the right posterior STG. It identifies the left medial frontal gyrus as uniquely activated by the theory-of-mind task. The cited paper therefore does not link posterior right STG to ToM as the sentence suggests. (LLM, conf=0.87)

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  • A cortical region in the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ) is recruited when participants read stories about people's thoughts, relative to controls for logical and attentional demands.

    “In fMRI studies, a cortical region in the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ) is recruited when participants read stories about people's thoughts, relative to controls for logical and attentional demands [1], [2].”

    From Distinct Regions of Right Temporo-Parietal Junction Are Selective for Theory of Mind and Exogenous Attention (2009) · cites this paper as [1]

    The Results (§3.2.3) report right inferior parietal activation when theory-of-mind stories were compared with physical stories, which controlled for inference demands. But the Discussion (§4) says this area was not identified when those stories were compared with unlinked sentences and cautions against associating it specifically with mentalising. The study used PET, not fMRI, and does not identify the activated area as the RTPJ. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • A core set of neural regions supports theory of mind, including cognitive areas such as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, affective areas such as medial prefrontal and anterior paracingulate cortex, and memory-related areas such as posterior cingulate and temporal poles.

    “euroimaging and behavioural studies of ToM implicate a core network of neural regions that serve diverse functions, and include cognitive (e.g., DLPFC 19,213,214 ), affective (e.g., mPFC, 215-219 anterior paracingulate cortex 220,221 ) and memory systems (e.g., posterior cingulate, temporal poles; 220 for a review, see McKinnon and colleagues 222 ).”

    From Systematic review of the neural basis of social cognition in patients with mood disorders (2012) · cites this paper as [216]

  • High-level regions (bilateral TPJ, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex) can integrate words and sentences into a meaningful, coherent whole narrative.

    “At the top of the hierarchy, high-level regions (bilateral TPJ, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex) can integrate words and sentences into a meaningful, coherent whole narrative (5, 15, 38–40).”

    From Amplification of local changes along the timescale processing hierarchy (2017) · cites this paper as [39]

  • After item-pool reduction, the social items did not emerge as significantly more difficult overall than the physical items for either the ASD sample (M = 0.61, SD = 0.21 vs. M = 0.55, SD = 0.16; t(10) = 0.57, p = .58) or the non-ASD controls (M = 0.76, SD = 0.21 vs. M = 0.61, SD = 0.14; t(10) = 1.45, p = .18).

    “Importantly, the outcome of the reduction of the item pool was such that the social items did not emerge as significantly more difficult overall than the physical items (contrary to what Fletcher et al. 1995, had found for the original Strange Stories physical items) for either the ASD sample (M = 0.61, SD = 0.21 vs. M = 0.55, SD = 0.16), t (10) = 0.57, p = .58, or the non-ASD controls (M = 0.76,”

    From Measuring Theory of Mind in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (2017) · cites this paper as Fletcher et al. 1995

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Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Bailey, D., Jones, T., Friston, K.J., Colebatch, J.G., & Frackowiak, R.S.J. (1991). Physical validation of statistical parametric mapping. Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, 11, (Suppl. 2), S150 (Abstract).
  2. Baron-Cohen, S. (1992). Out of sight or out of mind? A naturalistic study of deception in autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 1141-1155.
  3. Baron-Cohen, S., Ring, H., Moriarty, J., Schmitz, B., Costa, D., & Ell, P. (1994). The brain basis of theory of mind: the role of the orbito-frontal region. British Journal of Psychiatry, 16,5, 640-649.
  4. Horwitz, B., & Rumsey, J.M. (1994). Positron emission tomography: implications for cerebral dysfunction in autism, in M.L. Bauman & T.L. Kemper (Eds.), The neurobiology of autisrn (pp. 11J2-118). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  5. Leslie, A., & Roth, D. (1993). What autism teaches us about metarepresentation. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. Cohen (Eds.), Understanding other minds: l'erspec- rives from autism (pp. 83-111). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Authors
Fletcher, P.
Affiliations
The Royal Free Hospital (GB)
Corresponding author
Fletcher, P
ORCID
Fletcher, P
Venue
Cognition
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
1995-11
Volume
57
Issue
2
Pages
109-128
ISSN
0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/0010-0277(95)00692-r
OpenAlex
W2048517502
Cited by
1,522
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 84 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 42 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 63 · 2014: 52 · 2013: 61 · 2012: 71
FWCI
34.30
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Cognition (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Medical Research Council
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
Keywords
theory of mind, mental state attribution, narrative comprehension, mentalization, autism spectrum disorder, posterior cingulate cortex, temporal pole, superior temporal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, regional cerebral blood flow, contextual problem solving
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Awareness, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Concept Formation, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Imagination, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Middle Aged, Problem Solving, Reading, Reference Values, Regional Blood Flow, Tomography, Emission-Computed

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