The DOI matches its Crossref record; 60 of the 60 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Other minds in the brain: a functional imaging study of “theory of mind” in story comprehension.
Open accessAbstract
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 (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
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In the citing paper
“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]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“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]
In the citing paper
“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]
In the citing paper
“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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Metadata
- 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)
- 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
- bronze
- doi.org
- 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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