The ability to infer others' mental states is essential to social interactions. This ability, critically evaluated by testing whether one attributes false beliefs (FBs) to others, has been considered to be uniquely hominid and to accompany the activation of a distributed brain network. We challenge the taxon specificity of this ability and identify the causal brain locus by introducing an anticipatory-looking FB paradigm combined with chemogenetic neuronal manipulation in macaque monkeys. We find spontaneous gaze bias of macaques implicitly anticipating others' FB-driven actions. Silencing of the medial prefrontal neuronal activity with inhibitory designer receptor exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) specifically eliminates the implicit gaze bias while leaving the animals' visually guided and memory-guided tracking abilities intact. Thus, neuronal activity in the medial prefrontal cortex could have a causal role in FB-attribution-like behaviors in the primate lineage, emphasizing the importance of probing the neuronal mechanisms underlying theory of mind with relevant macaque animal models.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.03.013 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Studying attention to IPCC climate change maps with mobile eye-tracking.
PLoS One
January 2025
Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and the Study of Religion, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, München, Germany.
Many visualisations used in the climate communication field aim to present the scientific models of climate change to the public. However, relatively little research has been conducted on how such data are visually processed, particularly from a behavioural science perspective. This study examines trends in visual attention to climate change predictions in world maps using mobile eye-tracking while participants engage with the visualisations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: In preterm and very low birth weight (VLBW) infants, attention-related problems have been found to be more pronounced and emerge later as academic difficulties that may persist into school age. In response, based on three attention networks: alerting, orienting, and executive attention, we examined the development of attention functions at 42 months (not corrected for prematurity) as a follow-up study of VLBW ( = 23) and normal birth weight (NBW: = 48) infants.
Method: The alerting and orienting attention networks were examined through an overlap task with or without warning signal.
Preserved learning of implicit regularities with predictive social cues in older adults.
Front Psychiatry
December 2024
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Introduction: With ageing there are changes in the ability to orient attention, which affect more endogenous than exogenous orienting. However, orienting attention by the gaze direction of others shares characteristics of both exogenous and endogenous attention and it is unclear how it is affected by ageing. Being able to orient attention by the gaze direction of others is important to establish successful social interactions (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpontaneous theory of mind in autism: are anticipatory gaze and reaction time biases consistent?
Front Psychiatry
December 2024
Department of Physiology, Niigata University School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata, Japan.
Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit persistent deficits in social interaction and communication in adulthood. Pioneering studies have suggested that these difficulties arise from a lack of immediate, spontaneous mentalizing (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhat's left of the leftward bias in scene viewing? Lateral asymmetries in information processing during early search guidance.
Cognition
January 2025
School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
Understanding how early scene viewing is guided can reveal fundamental brain mechanisms for quickly making sense of our surroundings. Viewing is often initiated from the left side. Across two experiments, we focused on search initiation for lateralised targets within real-world scenes, investigating the role of the cerebral hemispheres in guiding the first saccade.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!