Abstract
The role of the frontal lobes in social cognition has been a subject of interest since 1848 when Phineas Gage (that friend of the first year Psychology student) was struck in the head by a tamping iron. Some researchers think that the marked behavioural changes seen as a result of frontal lobe damage — insensitivity to social cues, indifference to the opinion of others and rampant egocentrism — are indicative of a specific impairment in the domain of social interaction. Work on childhood autism has reached a similar conclusion, suggesting that a specific deficit in an innate ‘Theory-of-Mind’ (ToM) function — the ability to ascribe mental states to others — underlies the social aspects of this disorder. However, others argue that the behavioural deficits seen in these conditions are the result of impairments in domain-general executive functions 1 Perner J. Lang B. Development of theory of mind and executive control. Trends Cognit. Sci. 1999; 3: 337-344 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (425) Google Scholar . A new study by Andrea Rowe and colleagues attempts to shed some light on this controversy by comparing ToM abilities with executive function performance in patients with frontal lobe damage 2 Rowe A.D. et al. ‘Theory-of-mind’ impairments and their relationship to executive functioning following frontal lobe excision. Brain. 2001; 124: 600-616 Crossref PubMed Scopus (316) Google Scholar .
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