Joe Scherer

 Our ability to predict other people’s behavior by attributing them independent mental states such as beliefs and desires  Gives us the ability to deceive  Allows us to cooperate and empathize  Read others body language  Anticipate other’s behavior

 Uses Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI to measure blood flow in the brain due to neural activity  Has implicated three primary areas experiencing an increase in blood flow when theory of mind activities are in progress

 Anterior Paracingulate Cortex  Superior Temporal Sulci (STS)  Temporal Poles  Amygdala  Orbitofrontal Cortex  Only 1 fMRI study supports the Amygdala and Orbitofrontal Cortex’s involvement

 Abnormalities in understanding another person’s mind is one of the core properties of Autism  Multiple Theory of Mind tasks have been formed in order to distinguish autism in children

 Seeing is believing  Mental/Physical Distinction  Appearance Reality Distinction  Friend or Foe  False Belief Task

 Anterior Paracingulate Cortex, Superior Temporal Sulcus and the Temporal Lobes consistently show an increase in blood flow when Theory of Mind tasks are being performed

 The Decoupling Mechanism  The studies of Gallagher and McCabe provide evidence to support this idea  These 2 studies are important for two reasons  1. The only difference in the conditions was the stance adopted by the participants  2. They used on-line mentalizing instead of off- line

 Online is conducted in real time  Offline is where an experimenter asks participants to imagine a scenario in their past and retrospectively explain the behavior of the person involved

 Currently felt Emotions  Autobiographical Memory  Perception of Pain  It is active during the “rest” period in many studies of cognitive processes  Mentalizing about our own mental states

 Associated with understanding the meanings of stories and cartoons involving people  Causality and Intentions  Facial Emotion  Taking the Self Perspective  Along with the Temporal Poles may relate to abilities that aid in mentalizing

 Activated during Recollection of Familiar Faces and Scenes  Recognition of Voices  Emotional Memory Retrieval  Autobiographical Memory Retrieval  These results suggest the Temporal Poles to be involved in Semantic Memory, which useful in Scripts

 Activated in response to untrustworthy faces  Socially Salient Stimuli

 fMRI shows an increase of blood flow during intentional and unintentional embarrassing acts  Leads researchers to believe it is involved in a system that recognizes the negative reactions of others  Unlikely to be directly responsible for Theory of Mind