What you believe versus what you think they believe: a neuroimaging study of conceptual perspective‐taking
Abstract
Social communication requires shared representations as well as a cognitive flexibility for successful interactions between self and other. What neural mechanisms underlie the ability to distinguish between our own perspective vs. the perspective of others at a conceptual level? In this PET study subjects who were medical students were asked according to the experimental conditions to respond to a list of health‐related questions, taking either their own perspective or the perspective of a ‘lay person’. Third‐person perspective as compared to first‐person perspective was associated with activation in the medial part of the superior frontal gyrus, in the left superior temporal sulcus, in the left temporal pole and in the right inferior parietal lobe. The reverse comparison revealed a specific activation in the postcentral gyrus for the first‐person conceptual perspective. This study provides congruent results at the conceptual level with previous studies investigating the neural correlates of self/other distinction at the motor level, and opens a new area of research in which conceptual cognition can be viewed in the continuity of motor cognition.
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The parietal and frontal cortices are associated with making the distinction between 1PP and 3PP at the motor, visuo-spatial, conceptual and emotional level.
“Functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that the parietal and frontal cortices are associated with making the distinction between 1PP and 3PP at the motor (Ruby & Decety, 2001), visuo-spatial, (Vogeley et al., 2004), conceptual (Ruby & Decety, 2003) and emotional (Ruby & Decety, 2004) level.”
From Development of the adolescent brain: implications for executive function and social cognition (2006) · cites this paper as Ruby & Decety, 2003
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- Authors
- Ruby, P., & Decety, J.
- Affiliations
- Inserm (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Ruby, Perrine
- ORCID
- Ruby, Perrine
- Venue
- European Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2003-06
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 2475-2480
- ISSN
- 0953-816X (ISSN-L)
- 1460-9568
- OpenAlex
- W1990259414
- Cited by
- 414
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 31.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- European Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- self-other distinction, first-person perspective, third-person perspective, social cognition, shared representations, cognitive flexibility, superior frontal gyrus, superior temporal sulcus, temporal pole, inferior parietal lobule, postcentral gyrus, motor cognition, medical students
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition, Communication, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Imagination, Interpersonal Relations, Functional Laterality, Male, Reaction Time, Thinking, Tomography, Emission-Computed
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