The DOI matches its Crossref record; 84 of the 84 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Two Takes on the Social Brain: A Comparison of Theory of Mind Tasks
Abstract
We compared two tasks that are widely used in research on mentalizing—false belief stories and animations of rigid geometric shapes that depict social interactions—to investigate whether the neural systems that mediate the representation of others' mental states are consistent across these tasks. Whereas false belief stories activated primarily the anterior paracingulate cortex (APC), the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus (PCC/PC), and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ)—components of the distributed neural system for theory of mind (ToM)—the social animations activated an extensive region along nearly the full extent of the superior temporal sulcus, including a locus in the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), as well as the frontal operculum and inferior parietal lobule (IPL)—components of the distributed neural system for action understanding—and the fusiform gyrus. These results suggest that the representation of covert mental states that may predict behavior and the representation of intentions that are implied by perceived actions involve distinct neural systems. These results show that the TPJ and the pSTS play dissociable roles in mentalizing and are parts of different distributed neural systems. Because the social animations do not depict articulated body movements, these results also highlight that the perception of the kinematics of actions is not necessary to activate the mirror neuron system, suggesting that this system plays a general role in the representation of intentions and goals of actions. Furthermore, these results suggest that the fusiform gyrus plays a general role in the representation of visual stimuli that signify agency, independent of visual form.
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In the citing paper
“Gobbini et al. (2007) presented participants with Theory of Mind stories, social animations of geometric shapes (Heider and Simmel 1944), and biological motion.They reported overlapping regions of activation in the pSTS to biological motion and to social animations, but did not find activations in this overlap region to Theory of Mind stories.”
From Functional Heterogeneity and Convergence in the Right Temporoparietal Junction (2016) · cites this paper as Gobbini et al. 2007
In the citing paper
“Indeed, in Gobbini et al. (2007), rTPJ activations to false belief stories were only present at a lower threshold of P < 0.01.”
From Functional Heterogeneity and Convergence in the Right Temporoparietal Junction (2016) · cites this paper as Gobbini et al. 2007
In the citing paper
“Our finding of overlapping activations in the TPJ stands in contrast to some previous studies that did not find overlapping activations when comparing Biological Motion and Theory of Mind tasks (Gobbini et al. 2007;Saxe et al. 2009), or Theory of Mind and Attention-Reorienting tasks (Scholz et al. 2009).”
From Functional Heterogeneity and Convergence in the Right Temporoparietal Junction (2016) · cites this paper as Gobbini et al. 2007
In the citing paper
“In particular, the right TPJ (RTPJ) shows increased metabolic activity whenever participants read about a person's beliefs in nonmoral (5–8) and moral (9) contexts.”
From Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments (2010) · cites this paper as [5]
Citations
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The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception
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The distributed human neural system for face perception
Haxby, J. V., Hoffman, E. A., & Gobbini, M. I. (2000) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(00)01482-0 · Cited by 4,891
Self-citationBerti, A. (1992) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/0028-3932(92)90076-x · Cited by 4,190
The reorienting system of the human brain: from environment to theory of mind
Corbetta, M., Patel, G., & Shulman, G. L. (2008) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2008.04.017 · Cited by 3,889
Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition
Amodio, D. M., & Frith, C. D. (2006) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn1884 · Cited by 3,782 · cited 6×
“…previous attempts to distinguish the roles played by different subregions of these areas relied on comparisons between published studies (e.g., Amodio & Frith, 2006; a notable exception is the recent study by Mitchell, Macrae, & Banaji, 2006), we compared the loci of activation for two…”
BackgroundResultInfluentialUnderstanding motor events: a neurophysiological study
di Pellegrino, G., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V., & Rizzolatti, G. (1992) · Experimental Brain Research · doi:10.1007/bf00230027 · Cited by 3,539
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Montgomery K. J., 2003, Program, 10
- 10.1207/s15516709cog0401_3 · DOI
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The reorienting system of the human brain: from environment to theory of mind
Corbetta, M., Patel, G., & Shulman, G. L. (2008) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2008.04.017 · Cited by 3,889
Ochsner, K. N., Silvers, J. A., & Buhle, J. T. (2012) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06751.x · Cited by 1,879
Fractionating theory of mind: a meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies
Schurz, M., Radua, J., Aichhorn, M., Richlan, F., & Perner, J. (2014) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.01.009 · Cited by 1,656
Understanding others' actions and goals by mirror and mentalizing systems: a meta-analysis
Van Overwalle, F., & Baetens, K. (2009) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.009 · Cited by 1,329
The Neural Bases of Social Cognition and Story Comprehension
Mar, R. A. (2011) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-120709-145406 · Cited by 950
Metadata
- Authors
- Gobbini, M. I., Koralek, A. C., Bryan, R. E., Montgomery, K. J., & Haxby, J. V.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2007-11-01
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1803-1814
- ISSN
- 0898-929X (ISSN-L)
- 1530-8898
- OpenAlex
- W2138293491
- Cited by
- 436
- References
- 84
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 33 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 44 · 2012: 36
- FWCI
- 35.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion)
- Iris (University of Trento) (submittedVersion)
- 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
- theory of mind, mentalization, social animation, temporoparietal junction, posterior superior temporal sulcus, posterior cingulate cortex, fusiform gyrus, mirror neuron system, action understanding, intention understanding, agency perception, neural dissociation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition, Concept Formation, Evoked Potentials, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Psychological Theory, Social Behavior, Social Perception
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