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Distinct Regions of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex Are Associated with Self-referential Processing and Perspective Taking
Open accessAbstract
The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) appears to play a prominent role in two fundamental aspects of social cognition, that is, self-referential processing and perspective taking. However, it is currently unclear whether the same or different regions of the MPFC mediate these two interdependent processes. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study sought to clarify the issue by manipulating both dimensions in a factorial design. Participants judged the extent to which trait adjectives described their own personality (e.g., “Are you sociable?”) or the personality of a close friend (e.g., “Is Caroline sociable?”) and were also asked to put themselves in the place of their friend (i.e., to take a third-person perspective) and estimate how this person would judge the adjectives, with the target of the judgments again being either the self (e.g., “According to Caroline, are you sociable?”) or the other person (e.g., “According to Caroline, is she sociable?”). We found that self-referential processing (i.e., judgments targeting the self vs. the other person) yielded activation in the ventral and dorsal anterior MPFC, whereas perspective taking (i.e., adopting the other person's perspective, rather than one's own, when making judgments) resulted in activation in the posterior dorsal MPFC; the interaction between the two dimensions yielded activation in the left dorsal MPFC. These findings show that self-referential processing and perspective taking recruit distinct regions of the MPFC and suggest that the left dorsal MPFC may be involved in decoupling one's own from other people's perspectives on the self.
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“It is interesting to note that when people think about the self from others' point of view (e.g.'Does my teacher think that I am lazy?'), the mPFC activation disappears.Instead, a more dorsal and posterior part of the PFC receives prominent activations (D' Argembeau et al., 2007).”
From Cultural neuroscience of the self: understanding the social grounding of the brain (2010) · cites this paper as D' Argembeau et al., 2007
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Cites
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“&”
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Metadata
- Authors
- D'Argembeau, A., Ruby, P., Collette, F., Degueldre, C., Balteau, E., Luxen, A., Maquet, P., & Salmon, E.
- Affiliations
- 1University of Liège, Belgium
- Inserm (FR)
- University of Liège (BE)
- Venue
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2007-06-01
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 935-944
- ISSN
- 0898-929X (ISSN-L)
- 1530-8898
- OpenAlex
- W2026985064
- Cited by
- 495
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 54 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 36 · 2012: 25
- FWCI
- 40.87
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- orbi.uliege.be
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ORBi (University of Liège) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- 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 › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- medial prefrontal cortex, self-referential processing, perspective taking, social cognition, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, ventral anterior cingulate cortex, self-other distinction, personality judgment, third-person perspective
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Judgment, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Mental Processes, Reaction Time, Self Concept, Prefrontal Cortex
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