Mentalizing regions represent distributed, continuous, and abstract dimensions of others' beliefs.

ABSTRACT: The human capacity to reason about others' minds includes making causal inferences about intentions, beliefs, values, and goals. Previous fMRI research has suggested that a network of brain regions, including bilateral temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), superior temporal sulcus (STS), and medial prefrontal-cortex (MPFC), are reliably recruited for mental state reasoning. Here, in two fMRI experiments, we investigate the representational content of these regions. Building on existing computational and neural evidence, we hypothesized that social brain regions contain at least two functionally and spatially distinct components: one that represents information related to others' motivations and values, and another that represents information about others' beliefs and knowledge. Using multi-voxe

SUBMITTER: Koster-Hale J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5696012 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature