Mental State Inferences Research Articles

Reprint of “Biological motion perception links diverse facets of theory of mind during middle childhood”

Two cornerstones of social development—social perception and theory of mind—undergo brain and behavioral changes during middle childhood, but the link between these developing domains is unclear. One theoretical perspective argues that these skills represent domain-specific areas of social development, whereas other perspectives suggest that both skills may reflect a more integrated social system. Given recent evidence from adults that these superficially different domains may be related, the current study examined the developmental relation between these social processes in 52 children aged 7 to 12years. Controlling for age and IQ, social perception (perception of biological motion in noise) was significantly correlated with two measures of theory of mind: one in which children made mental state inferences based on photographs of the eye region of the face and another in which children made mental state inferences based on stories. Social perception, however, was not correlated with children’s ability to make physical inferences from stories about people. Furthermore, the mental state inference tasks were not correlated with each other, suggesting a role for social perception in linking various facets of theory of mind.

The role of the amygdala in naturalistic mentalising in typical development and in autism spectrum disorder.

The substantial discrepancy between mentalising in experimental settings v. real-life social interactions hinders the understanding of the neural basis of real-life social cognition and of social impairments in psychiatric disorders. To determine the neural mechanisms underlying naturalistic mentalising in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder. We investigated mentalising with a new video-based functional magnetic resonance imaging task in 20 individuals with autism spectrum disorder and 22 matched healthy controls. Naturalistic mentalising implicated regions of the traditional mentalising network (medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction), and additionally the insula and amygdala. Moreover, amygdala activity predicted implicit mentalising performance on an independent behavioural task. Compared with controls, the autism spectrum disorder group did not show differences in neural activity within classical mentalising regions. They did, however, show reduced amygdala activity and a reduced correlation between amygdala activity and mentalising accuracy on the behavioural task, compared with controls. These findings highlight the crucial role of the amygdala in making accurate implicit mental state inferences in typical development and in the social cognitive impairments of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Social representations and contextual adjustments as two distinct components of the Theory of Mind brain network: Evidence from the REMICS task

Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to infer the mental states of others. Behavioral measures of ToM usually present information about both a character and the context in which this character is placed, and these different pieces of information can be used to infer the character's mental states. A set of brain regions designated as the ToM brain network is recognized to support (ToM) inferences. Different brain regions within that network could however support different ToM processes.This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to distinguish the brain regions supporting two aspects inherent to many ToM tasks, i.e., the ability to infer or represent mental states and the ability to use the context to adjust these inferences. Nineteen healthy subjects were scanned during the REMICS task, a novel task designed to orthogonally manipulate mental state inferences (as opposed to physical inferences) and contextual adjustments of inferences (as opposed to inferences that do not require contextual adjustments).We observed that mental state inferences and contextual adjustments, which are important aspects of most behavioral ToM tasks, rely on distinct brain regions or subregions within the classical brain network activated in previous ToM research. Notably, an interesting dissociation emerged within the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and temporo-parietal junctions (TPJ) such that the inferior part of these brain regions responded to mental state inferences while the superior part of these brain regions responded to the requirement for contextual adjustments.This study provides evidence that the overall set of brain regions activated during ToM tasks supports different processes, and highlights that cognitive processes related to contextual adjustments have an important role in ToM and should be further studied.

Testosterone and estrogen impact social evaluations and vicarious emotions: A double-blind placebo-controlled study.

The abilities to "read" other peoples' intentions and emotions, and to learn from their experiences, are critical to survival. Previous studies have highlighted the role of sex hormones, notably testosterone and estrogen, in these processes. Yet it is unclear how these hormones affect social cognition and emotion using acute hormonal administration. In the present double-blind placebo-controlled study, we administered an acute exogenous dose of testosterone or estrogen to healthy female and male volunteers, respectively, with the aim of investigating the effects of these steroids on social-cognitive and emotional processes. Following hormonal and placebo treatment, participants made (a) facial dominance judgments, (b) mental state inferences (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test), and (c) learned aversive associations through watching others' emotional responses (observational fear learning [OFL]). Our results showed that testosterone administration to females enhanced ratings of facial dominance but diminished their accuracy in inferring mental states. In men, estrogen administration resulted in an increase in emotional (vicarious) reactivity when watching a distressed other during the OFL task. Taken together, these results suggest that sex hormones affect social-cognitive and emotional functions at several levels, linking our results to neuropsychiatric disorders in which these functions are impaired. (PsycINFO Database Record

Strategies for the inference of mental states: Projection and stereotyping

Strategies for the inference of mental states: Projection and stereotyping

Tracking the Neurodevelopmental Correlates of Mental State Inference in Early Childhood

Between ages 4 and 6, children become better at inferring what others are thinking and feeling. However, the neural correlates of these advances are understudied. The current study investigated the relation between performance on a face-based mental state inference task and white matter characteristics. Two tracts of interest, the uncinate fasciculus (UF) and inferior longitudinal fasciculus, were analyzed due to their involvement in social–emotional and face processing, respectively. Findings demonstrate a significant relation between fractional anisotropy in the UF and task performance in 4- but not 6-year-old children. Findings have implications for typical and atypical populations.

Cultural effects on mindreading

People from other cultural backgrounds sometimes seem inscrutable. We identified a potential cause of this phenomenon in two experiments demonstrating that adults’ mental state inferences are influenced by the cultural identity of the target. We adapted White, Hill, Happé, and Frith’s (2009) Strange Stories to create matched intra-cultural and cross-cultural mindreading and control conditions. Experiment 1 showed that Australian participants were faster to respond and received higher scores in the intra-cultural mindreading condition relative to the cross-cultural mindreading condition, but performance in the control conditions was equivalent. Experiment 2 replicated this pattern in independent samples of Australian and Chilean participants. These findings have important implications for cross-cultural communication and understanding.

Biological motion perception links diverse facets of theory of mind during middle childhood

Two cornerstones of social development—social perception and theory of mind—undergo brain and behavioral changes during middle childhood, but the link between these developing domains is unclear. One theoretical perspective argues that these skills represent domain-specific areas of social development, whereas other perspectives suggest that both skills may reflect a more integrated social system. Given recent evidence from adults that these superficially different domains may be related, the current study examined the developmental relation between these social processes in 52 children aged 7 to 12years. Controlling for age and IQ, social perception (perception of biological motion in noise) was significantly correlated with two measures of theory of mind: one in which children made mental state inferences based on photographs of the eye region of the face and another in which children made mental state inferences based on stories. Social perception, however, was not correlated with children’s ability to make physical inferences from stories about people. Furthermore, the mental state inference tasks were not correlated with each other, suggesting a role for social perception in linking various facets of theory of mind.

Is Social Categorization the Missing Link Between Weak Central Coherence and Mental State Inference Abilities in Autism? Preliminary Evidence from a General Population Sample.

We explore the relationship between the 'theory of mind' (ToM) and 'central coherence' difficulties of autism. We introduce covariation between hierarchically-embedded categories and social information--at the local level, the global level, or at both levels simultaneously--within a category confusion task. We then ask participants to infer the mental state of novel category members, and measure participants' autism-spectrum quotient (AQ). Results reveal a positive relationship between AQ and the degree of local/global social categorization, which in turn predicts the pattern of mental state inferences. These results provide preliminary evidence for a causal relationship between central coherence and ToM abilities. Implications with regard to ToM processes, social categorization, intervention, and the development of a unified account of autism are discussed.

Factors contributing to social cognition impairment in borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia

Social cognition (SC) deficits have been described both in patients with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, while the former tend towards simplistic mental state attributions (undermentalizing), the latter are more likely to make overly complex mental state inferences (overmentalizing). Performance on complex SC tasks has been shown to correlate with neurocognitive ability, emotion perception, a history of trauma, and overconfidence in errors. However, it is unclear how these factors relate to different aspects of SC deficits. Aim of the present study was to examine the pathways of SC impairment by investigating performance profiles and their predictors comparatively in BPD and schizophrenia. Participants were 44 patients with BPD, 36 patients with schizophrenia, and 38 healthy controls. Undermentalizing and overmentalizing were assessed with an ecologically valid SC task. Patients with BPD exhibited increased overmentalizing, whereas patients with schizophrenia showed a more extensive deficit pattern, their main error type being undermentalizing. Overconfidence in errors was the most important predictor for overmentalizing, while undermentalizing depended mainly on verbal memory and emotion perception. Thus, BPD und schizophrenia exhibited different SC impairment patterns, and different types of SC errors were predicted by different factors. These findings have implications for the optimization of treatment approaches.

When gaze opens the channel for communication: Integrative role of IFG and MPFC

Recent advances in the field of cognitive neuroscience have revealed that direct gaze modulates activity in cortical and subcortical key regions of the ‘social brain network’, including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the anterior rostral medial prefrontal cortex (arMPFC). However, very little is known about how direct gaze is processed during live interaction with a real partner. Here, for the first time we used an experimental setup allowing the participant inside an MRI scanner to interact face-to-face with a partner located in the scanner room. Depending on condition, the participant and the partner were instructed either to look at each other in the eyes or to direct their gaze away from the other. As control conditions, participants gazed at their own eyes, reflected in a mirror, or gazed at a picture of the partner's eyes. Results revealed that direct gaze by the partner was associated with activity in areas involved in production and comprehension of language and action, including the IFG, the premotor cortex (PM), and the supplementary motor area (SMA). Activations in these areas were observed regardless of the participant's gaze behavior. In contrast, increased activity in arMPFC, an area involved in inference of other mental states during social interaction and communication, was only observed when the participant reciprocated the partner's direct gaze so as to establish mutual gaze. Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis revealed effective connectivity between the IFG and the arMPFC during mutual gaze. This suggests that, within a larger network concerned with the processing of social gaze, mutual gaze with a real partner is established by an increased coupling between areas involved in the detection of communicative intentions, language, and social interaction.

Humans versus Computers: Impact of Emotion Expressions on People's Decision Making

Recent research in perception and theory of mind reveals that people show different behavior and lower activation of brain regions associated with mentalizing (i.e., the inference of other's mental states) when engaged in decision making with computers, when compared to humans. These findings are important for affective computing because they suggest people's decisions might be influenced differently according to whether they believe emotional expressions shown in computers are being generated by algorithms or humans. To test this, we had people engage in a social dilemma (Experiment 1) or negotiation (Experiment 2) with virtual humans that were either perceived to be agents (i.e., controlled by computers) or avatars (i.e., controlled by humans). The results showed that such perceptions have a deep impact on people's decisions: in Experiment 1, people cooperated more with virtual humans that showed cooperative facial displays (e.g., joy after mutual cooperation) than competitive displays (e.g., joy when the participant was exploited) but, the effect was stronger with avatars ( $d = .601$ ) than with agents ( $d = .360$ ); in Experiment 2, people conceded more to angry than neutral virtual humans but, again, the effect was much stronger with avatars ( $d = 1.162$ ) than with agents ( $d = .066$ ). Participants also showed less anger towards avatars and formed more positive impressions of avatars when compared to agents.

Making Inferences: Comprehension of Physical Causality, Intentionality, and Emotions in Discourse by High-Functioning Older Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Autism.

Studies investigating inferential reasoning in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have focused on the ability to make socially-related inferences or inferences more generally. Important variables for intervention planning such as whether inferences depend on physical experiences or the nature of social information have received less consideration. A measure of bridging inferences of physical causation, mental states, and emotional states was administered to older children, adolescents, and adults with and without ASD. The ASD group had more difficulty making inferences, particularly related to emotional understanding. Results suggest that individuals with ASD may not have the stored experiential knowledge that specific inferences depend upon or have difficulties accessing relevant experiences due to linguistic limitations. Further research is needed to tease these elements apart.

Verbal framing of statistical evidence drives children’s preference inferences

Although research has shown that statistical information can support children’s inferences about specific psychological causes of others’ behavior, previous work leaves open the question of how children interpret statistical information in more ambiguous situations. The current studies investigated the effect of specific verbal framing information on children’s ability to infer mental states from statistical regularities in behavior. We found that preschool children inferred others’ preferences from their statistically non-random choices only when they were provided with verbal information placing the person’s behavior in a specifically preference-related context, not when the behavior was presented in a non-mentalistic action context or an intentional choice context. Furthermore, verbal framing information showed some evidence of supporting children’s mental state inferences even from more ambiguous statistical data. These results highlight the role that specific, relevant framing information can play in supporting children’s ability to derive novel insights from statistical information.

Interaction without intent: the shape of the social world in Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative condition. Patients with this movement disorder can exhibit deficits on tasks involving Theory of Mind (ToM): the ability to understand mental states such as beliefs and emotions. We investigated mental state inference in HD in response to ambiguous animations involving geometric shapes, while exploring the impact of symptoms within cognitive, emotional and motor domains. Forty patients with HD and twenty healthy controls described the events in videos showing random movements of two triangles (i.e. floating), simple interactions (e.g. following) and more complex interactions prompting the inference of mental states (e.g. one triangle encouraging the other). Relationships were explored between animation interpretation and measures of executive functioning, alexithymia and motor symptoms. Individuals with HD exhibited alexithymia and a reduced tendency to spontaneously attribute intentions to interacting triangles on the animations task. Attribution of intentions on the animations task correlated with motor symptoms and burden of pathology. Importantly, patients without motor symptoms showed similar ToM deficits despite intact executive functions. Subtle changes in ToM that are unrelated to executive dysfunction could therefore feature in basal ganglia disorders prior to motor onset.

An eye-tracking method to reveal the link between gazing patterns and pragmatic abilities in high functioning autism spectrum disorders.

The present study illustrates the potential advantages of an eye-tracking method for exploring the association between visual scanning of faces and inferences of mental states. Participants watched short videos involving social interactions and had to explain what they had seen. The number of cognition verbs (e.g., think, believe, know) in their answers were counted. Given the possible use of peripheral vision that could confound eye-tracking measures, we added a condition using a gaze-contingent viewing window: the entire visual display is blurred, expect for an area that moves with the participant’s gaze. Eleven typical adults and eleven high functioning adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) were recruited. The condition employing the viewing window yielded strong correlations between the average duration of fixations, the ratio of cognition verbs and standard measures of social disabilities.

Why side-effect outcomes do not affect intuitions about intentional actions: properly shifting the focus from intentional outcomes back to intentional actions.

Over the last decade, many articles have suggested that the "badness" of side-effect outcomes influences perceivers' intuitions about intentionality, contradicting the traditional notion that mental state inferences lead to moral judgments rather than the reverse. Challenging this assertion, we argue that typically, consideration of intentionality involves thinking about "intentional actions" (things people do) rather than unintended outcomes. Across several studies, we offer an explanatory framework describing why side-effect asymmetries emerge. We first establish that people differentiate actions, outcomes, goals, and side effects, associating intentions with goals but intentionality with actions in furtherance of goals, and that each of these components is readily identified in side-effect scenarios. We then demonstrate that when relationships among actions, goals, and side effects are available for consideration in response options, side-effect effects disappear. We additionally show that, because actions are not explicitly referenced, people reinterpret questions about the intentionality of side effects-particularly for harmful outcomes-as asking about intentional actions that caused side effects, creating a mismatch between participants' pragmatic and researchers' literal interpretations. Finally, we demonstrate how harmful side effects shift perceivers' attention toward considering agents' knowledge/awareness, whereas beneficial side effects focus attention on intentions/motives, which serves a useful social purpose. We discuss how perceptions of intentionality are not influenced by side-effect valence, although, because of structural differences in how people view harm versus benefit, outcomes influence which mental states perceivers consider important when answering questions that are typically asked in side-effects research. Beyond intentionality, we consider how these findings may shed light on trait attribution processes, more generally.

Modeling inference of mental states

Behavior oftentimes allows for many possible interpretations in terms of mental states, such as goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions. Reasoning about the relation between behavior and mental states is therefore considered to be an effortful process. We argue that people use simple strategies to deal with high cognitive demands of mental state inference. To test this hypothesis, we developed a computational cognitive model, which was able to simulate previous empirical findings: In two-player games, people apply simple strategies at first. They only start revising their strategies when these do not pay off. The model could simulate these findings by recursively attributing its own problem solving skills to the other player, thus increasing the complexity of its own inferences. The model was validated by means of a comparison with findings from a developmental study in which the children demonstrated similar strategic developments.

Observing Obedience: How Sophisticated are Social Perceivers?

How does the general public understand the behavior of Milgram's teachers—those participants who ostensibly tortured an innocent stranger? In our social perception analysis, we contrast two research traditions that attempt to answer this question. On one hand, lay dispositionism argues that people make harsh, person‐focused judgments of Milgram's teachers. On the other hand, a mental state account suggests that perceivers integrate information about social situations and agents’ behavior to infer the mental states of others. Mental state inferences then, in turn, drive social judgments of others. We review the theory of lay dispositionism, its application to the Milgram experiments, and several limitations of the theory. We then offer an alternative mental state account and support this view with recent studies on the Milgram experiments, and extensions to everyday behavior explanation. A final section considers the research and policy implications of our analysis.

H01 How Do Mental State Inferences Shape The Social World In Huntington's Disease?

Background Previous research has indicated that Huntington’s disease (HD) can be associated with deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM): the ability to understand mental states such as beliefs and emotions. Aims We explored the tendency of patients with HD to attribute mental states to ambiguous stimuli in the form of a series of video-clips involving animated shapes. Some of these animations are considered to involve random movements of two triangles, while others are commonly interpreted as depicting simple or more complex social interactions prompting the inference of mental states to the shapes (e.g. chasing, persuading). Methods Forty patients with genetically determined HD and twenty healthy controls matched for age and gender participated in the study. In addition to the video animations task we administered measures of alexithymia, mood disorder, executive functions and motor symptoms. Results HD gene carriers showed significant evidence of alexithymia in comparison to controls. Moreover, individuals with HD exhibited a deficit in the attribution of intentions on the animations task. In patients with motor onset, aspects of performance on the animations task were correlated with motor symptom severity and alexithymia. However, subgroup analyses revealed a significantly reduced tendency to infer intentions was apparent in patients without motor symptoms and intact executive functions. Conclusions HD is associated with a deficit in the spontaneous attribution of mental states, and therefore a reduced propensity to adopt the intentional stance. Our findings further suggest that subtle changes in ToM can be detected prior to motor onset in HD.