Are all beliefs equal? Implicit belief attributions recruiting core brain regions of theory of mind. Kovács, A. M., Kühn, S., Gergely, G., Csibra, G., & Brass, M. PLoS One, 9(9):e106558, 2014.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Humans possess efficient mechanisms to behave adaptively in social contexts. They ascribe goals and beliefs to others and use these for behavioural predictions. Researchers argued for two separate mental attribution systems: an implicit and automatic one involved in online interactions, and an explicit one mainly used in offline deliberations. However, the underlying mechanisms of these systems and the types of beliefs represented in the implicit system are still unclear. Using neuroimaging methods, we show that the right temporo-parietal junction and the medial prefrontal cortex, brain regions consistently found to be involved in explicit mental state reasoning, are also recruited by spontaneous belief tracking. While the medial prefrontal cortex was more active when both the participant and another agent believed an object to be at a specific location, the right temporo-parietal junction was selectively activated during tracking the false beliefs of another agent about the presence, but not the absence of objects. While humans can explicitly attribute to a conspecific any possible belief they themselves can entertain, implicit belief tracking seems to be restricted to beliefs with specific contents, a content selectivity that may reflect a crucial functional characteristic and signature property of implicit belief attribution.
@Article{Kovacs2014,
  author      = {Kov\'acs, Agnes Melinda and K\"uhn, Simone and Gergely, Gy\"orgy and Csibra, Gergely and Brass, Marcel},
  journal     = {PLoS One},
  title       = {Are all beliefs equal? Implicit belief attributions recruiting core brain regions of theory of mind.},
  year        = {2014},
  number      = {9},
  pages       = {e106558},
  volume      = {9},
  abstract    = {Humans possess efficient mechanisms to behave adaptively in social
	contexts. They ascribe goals and beliefs to others and use these
	for behavioural predictions. Researchers argued for two separate
	mental attribution systems: an implicit and automatic one involved
	in online interactions, and an explicit one mainly used in offline
	deliberations. However, the underlying mechanisms of these systems
	and the types of beliefs represented in the implicit system are still
	unclear. Using neuroimaging methods, we show that the right temporo-parietal
	junction and the medial prefrontal cortex, brain regions consistently
	found to be involved in explicit mental state reasoning, are also
	recruited by spontaneous belief tracking. While the medial prefrontal
	cortex was more active when both the participant and another agent
	believed an object to be at a specific location, the right temporo-parietal
	junction was selectively activated during tracking the false beliefs
	of another agent about the presence, but not the absence of objects.
	While humans can explicitly attribute to a conspecific any possible
	belief they themselves can entertain, implicit belief tracking seems
	to be restricted to beliefs with specific contents, a content selectivity
	that may reflect a crucial functional characteristic and signature
	property of implicit belief attribution.},
  doi         = {10.1371/journal.pone.0106558},
  language    = {eng},
  medline-pst = {epublish},
  pmid        = {25259625},
  school      = {Department of Experimental Psychology and Ghent Institute of Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.},
  timestamp   = {2014.11.15},
}

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