Abstract
Cortical activity associated with generating an inference was measured using fMRI. Participants read three-sentence passages that differed in whether or not an inference needed to be drawn to understand them. The inference was based on either a protagonist's intention or a physical consequence of a character's action. Activation was expected in Theory of Mind brain regions for the passages based on protagonists' intentions but not for the physical consequence passages. The activation measured in the right temporo-parietal junction was greater in the intentional passages than in the consequence passages, consistent with predictions from a Theory of Mind perspective. In contrast, there was increased occipital activation in the physical inference passages. For both types of passage, the cortical activity related to the reading of the critical inference sentence demonstrated a recruitment of a common inference cortical network. This general inference-related activation appeared bilaterally in the language processing areas (the inferior frontal gyrus, the temporal gyrus, and the angular gyrus), as well as in the medial to superior frontal gyrus, which has been found to be active in Theory of Mind tasks. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that component areas of the discourse processing network are recruited as needed based on the nature of the inference. A Protagonist monitoring and synthesis network is proposed as a more accurate account for Theory of Mind activation during narrative comprehension.
Highlights
The recruitment of cortical networks differed depending on the type of inference, such that intentional inferences recruited an additional Theory-of-Mind-like protagonist network and physical inferences recruited some more visually-based regions
Intentional inferences activated a number of discourse processing areas more than physical inferences did, indicated by the intentional-physical contrasts
The more demanding an inference is, the greater the extent to which other regions are recruited, in particular, the right inferior frontal gyrus, the bilateral anterior temporal gyri, and the left middle and superior frontal gyri. These regions may be more specialized within the inference process, performing functions such as text integration, coherence monitoring, protagonist monitoring, and inference generation [Mason and Just, 2006]
Summary
Discourse comprehension includes components such as processing at the word-, sentence-, and intra-sentence/discourse-levels, but it spans cognitive processing at higher/different levels: memory and inference generation [Haviland and Clark, 1974; Kintsch, 1988; Kuperberg et al., 2006; Myers and O’Brien, 1998; Myers et al, 2000]; problem solving [Noordman et al, 1992]; Theory of Mind [understanding the thoughts of another person, e.g., Castelli et al, 2002; Mason and Just, 2009]; perspective-taking [Mano et al, 2009]; and social interpretation [Gernsbacher et al, 1998; Mitchell et al, 2006]. The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, in particular, has been found to be active in many neuroimaging studies of connected text [Bottini et al, 1994; Eviatar and Just, 2006; Ferstl and von Cramon, 2001, 2002; Ferstl et al, 2005; Nichelli et al, 1995; Xu et al, 2005] This region has been found to activate in Theory of Mind tasks [Castelli et al, 2002; Gallagher and Frith, 2003; Greene et al, 2001; Martin and Weisberg, 2003; Moll et al, 2002]. Engagement of a social processing system, a Theory of Mind cortical network, should be expected during the reading of any narrative
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