The neural representation of mental beliefs held by two agents

Ceylan Özdem,Marcel Brass,Arjen Schippers,Frank Van Overwalle,Laurens Van der Cruyssen

doi:10.3758/s13415-019-00714-2

Ceylan Özdem, Marcel Brass + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-019-00714-2

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Abstract

Neuroimaging research has demonstrated that mentalizing about false beliefs held by other people recruits the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). However, earlier work was limited to a single agent that held a false belief. We investigated the effect of two agents that held similar or mixed false and/or true beliefs. Participants saw animated stories with two smurfs holding true or false beliefs (Story phase). At the end of each trial, they were requested to take the perspective of the self or one of the smurfs (Question phase). We predicted that an increasing number of smurfs holding a false belief would increase activation in the TPJ when participants have to report the belief of the smurf, because the incongruent belief should have a stronger influence if it is held by two compared with one agent. This prediction was confirmed as activation in the TPJ during the Story and Question phase increased when more smurfs held a false belief. Taking the perspective of the self led to stronger activation of the TPJ in the two conditions that involved a true belief and weakest activation in the condition of two false beliefs. These data suggest that activation in TPJ depends on the perspective participants take, and that the number of agents holding a false belief influences activation in the TPJ only when taking the agent’s perspective.

Highlights

In our daily life, we often interact with other people
Note that during the Story and self-perspective Question phase, the Mixed True and Mixed False beliefs are collapsed, because the two conditions are indistinguishable for the participants as the two smurfs play a similar role, because the target of judgment is only indicated afterwards. (Statistics of all t-tests including tvalues and p-values, are listed in Supplementary Table 2)
In the Story Phase, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the percentage signal change revealed a main effect in the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), F(2, 48) = 4.26, p < 0.05, and posterior medial frontal cortex (pmFC), F(2, 48) = 12.79, p < 0.001, with means showing an increase in activation going from Similar True, Mixed True & False to Similar False

Summary

Introduction

We usually make inferences about these people’s beliefs and mental states by observing their behaviors or by reading their statements on social media posts. The ability to infer others’ mental states facilitates our social interaction and cooperation. This process is termed mentalizing or Theory of Mind (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). Research so far has focused on how we understand the mind of a single person (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001), in real conversations or chat sessions we often communicate with several people at the time. The purpose of this article is to investigate systematically how we attribute beliefs to multiple compared with single agents

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