Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and theory-of-mind in brain and behaviour.

ABSTRACT: The process of understanding the minds of other people, such as their emotions and intentions, is mimicked when individuals try to understand an artificial mind. The assumption is that anthropomorphism, attributing human-like characteristics to non-human agents and objects, is an analogue to theory-of-mind, the ability to infer mental states of other people. Here, we test to what extent these two constructs formally overlap. Specifically, using a multi-method approach, we test if and how anthropomorphism is related to theory-of-mind using brain (Experiment 1) and behavioural (Experiment 2) measures. In a first exploratory experiment, we examine the relationship between dispositional anthropomorphism and activity within the theory-of-mind brain network (n = 108). Results from a Bayesian reg

SUBMITTER: Hortensius R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8356980 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature