Authors
Rebecca Saxe, Lindsey J Powell
Publication date
2006/8
Journal
Psychological science
Volume
17
Issue
8
Pages
692-699
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Description
Evidence from developmental psychology suggests that representing the contents of other people's thoughts and beliefs depends on a component of reasoning about other minds (theory of mind) that is distinct from the earlier-developing mental-state concepts for goals, perceptions, and feelings. To provide converging evidence, the current study investigated the substrate of the late-developing process in adult brains. Three regions—the right and left temporo-parietal junction and the posterior cingulate—responded selectively when subjects read about a protagonist's thoughts, but not when they read about other subjective, internal states or other socially relevant information about a person. By contrast, the medial prefrontal cortex responded equivalently in all of these story conditions, a result consistent with a broader role for medial prefrontal cortex in general social cognition. These data support the hypothesis that …
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Scholar articles
R Saxe, LJ Powell - Psychological science, 2006