Mentalizing self mind but not others: Self-reported mentalization difficulties in multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: Mentalization can be defined as a mental process by which an individual directly or indirectly perceives and interprets one's own and others' behavior, emotions, beliefs, and needs based on designed mental states. Mentalization problems may be linked to remove associative white matter fiber disconnection. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the diseases with white matter lesions. By comparing MS patients with healthy controls, it was aimed to assess whether MS patients' mentalization skills are affected. METHOD: This study involved 243 participants (170 healthy controls and 73 patients with MS). All the participants completed a sociodemographic questionnaire and the Mentalization Scale (MentS). RESULTS: While it was discovered that MentS scores for the dimension of others-based mentalization (MentS-O) were statistically lower in MS group, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of the dimensions of motivation to mentalize (MentS-M) and self-based mentalization (MentS-S) scores. CONCLUSION: We may conclude that MS patients have trouble comprehending other people's thoughts. This effect can be one of the causes of MS patients' issues with social cognition.

Factor analysis of the Chinese version of the Autism Spectrum Quotient 10 and its association with schizotypal traits in adolescents and young adults in Hong Kong.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence suggesting that autistic traits are associated with schizotypal traits. This study examined the factor structure of the Autism Spectrum Quotient 10 (AQ-10) and its associations with schizotypal traits (measured by the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief [SPQ-B]) in a cohort of Chinese adolescents and young adults. METHODS: Invitation letters, stratified by locations and housing types, were randomly sent to individuals aged 15 to 24 years for participation. Assessments were made using face-to-face or online interviews. Autistic traits were assessed using the Chinese version of the AQ-10. Schizotypal personality traits were assessed using the Chinese version of the 22-item SPQ-B. RESULTS: In total, 395 male and 536 female participants (mean age, 19.93 years) were recruited between July 2020 and May 2021. Exploratory factor analysis of the AQ-10 yielded three factors (theory of mind, task switching, and attention deficits) explaining 55.11% of the total variance. Autistic traits were positively correlated with schizotypal traits of disorganised features (r = 0.21, p < 0.001), interpersonal relationship deficits (r = 0.19, p < 0.001), and cognitive-perceptual deficits (r = 0.11, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: In Chinese adolescents and young adults, autistic traits, especially task switching and attention deficits (compared with theory of mind) are more closely correlated with schizotypal personality traits. Disentangling the overlapping and diametrical structure of autistic traits and schizotypal traits may help understand their aetiologies, assessment, and interventions.

Intersubject correlations in reward and mentalizing brain circuits separately predict persuasiveness of two types of ISIS video propaganda.

The Islamist group ISIS has been particularly successful at recruiting Westerners as terrorists. A hypothesized explanation is their simultaneous use of two types of propaganda: Heroic narratives, emphasizing individual glory, alongside Social narratives, which emphasize oppression against Islamic communities. In the current study, functional MRI was used to measure brain responses to short ISIS propaganda videos distributed online. Participants were shown 4 Heroic and 4 Social videos categorized as such by another independent group of subjects. Persuasiveness was measured using post-scan predictions of recruitment effectiveness. Inter-subject correlation (ISC) was used to measure commonality of brain activity time courses across individuals. ISCs in ventral striatum predicted rated persuasiveness for Heroic videos, while ISCs in mentalizing and default networks, especially in dmPFC, predicted rated persuasiveness for Social videos. This work builds on past findings that engagement of the reward circuit and of mentalizing brain regions predicts preferences and persuasion. The observed dissociation as a function of stimulus type is novel, as is the finding that intersubject synchrony in ventral striatum predicts rated persuasiveness. These exploratory results identify possible neural mechanisms by which political extremists successfully recruit prospective members and specifically support the hypothesized distinction between Heroic and Social narratives for ISIS propaganda.

Disruption of dopamine D2/D3 system function impairs the human ability to understand the mental states of other people.

Difficulties in reasoning about others' mental states (i.e., mentalising/Theory of Mind) are highly prevalent among disorders featuring dopamine dysfunctions (e.g., Parkinson's disease) and significantly affect individuals' quality of life. However, due to multiple confounding factors inherent to existing patient studies, currently little is known about whether these sociocognitive symptoms originate from aberrant dopamine signalling or from psychosocial changes unrelated to dopamine. The present study, therefore, investigated the role of dopamine in modulating mentalising in a sample of healthy volunteers. We used a double-blind, placebo-controlled procedure to test the effect of the D2/D3 antagonist haloperidol on mental state attribution, using an adaptation of the Heider and Simmel (1944) animations task. On 2 separate days, once after receiving 2.5 mg haloperidol and once after receiving placebo, 33 healthy adult participants viewed and labelled short videos of 2 triangles depicting mental state (involving mentalistic interaction wherein 1 triangle intends to cause or act upon a particular mental state in the other, e.g., surprising) and non-mental state (involving reciprocal interaction without the intention to cause/act upon the other triangle's mental state, e.g., following) interactions. Using Bayesian mixed effects models, we observed that haloperidol decreased accuracy in labelling both mental and non-mental state animations. Our secondary analyses suggest that dopamine modulates inference from mental and non-mental state animations via independent mechanisms, pointing towards 2 putative pathways underlying the dopaminergic modulation of mental state attribution: action representation and a shared mechanism supporting mentalising and emotion recognition. We conclude that dopaminergic pathways impact Theory of Mind, at least indirectly. Our results have implications for the neurochemical basis of sociocognitive difficulties in patients with dopamine dysfunctions and generate new hypotheses about the specific dopamine-mediated mechanisms underlying social cognition.

Theory of Mind: A Brief Review of Candidate Genes.

Deficits in theory of mind (ToM), known as the ability to understand the other's mind, have been associated with several psychopathological outcomes. The present systematic review aims to summarize the results of genetic studies that investigated gene polymorphisms associated with mentalization performance tasks in children and adults. The systematic review was carried out following PRISMA guidelines, and the literature search was conducted in PubMed and EBSCOhost using the following keywords: 'theory of mind, mentalizing, mindreading' and 'gene, genetic basis'. Nineteen studies met the eligibility criteria for inclusion. Most of the literature focused on the role of DRD4, DAT1, OXTR, OXT, COMT, ZNF804A, AVP, AVPR, SCL6A4, EFHC2, MAO-A, and the family of GTF2I genes in influencing ToM. However, controversial results emerged in sustaining the link between specific genetic polymorphisms and mentalization abilities in children and adults. Available data show heterogeneous outcomes, with studies reporting an association between the same family genes in subjects of the same age and other studies reporting no correlation. This does not allow us to draw any solid conclusions but paves the way for exploring genes involved in ToM tasks.

From One's Heart to the Mind of Others: A Study in School-Aged Children.

Studies have shown a significant association between effective parasympathetic modulation of the heart and processes linked to social cognition. Particularly, Quintana and colleagues documented a relation between vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) and performance on a theory of mind (ToM) task, namely, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), in a sample of university students. The purpose of the present study was to test whether such result would extend to a sample of school-aged children (7-9 years old) using the child version of the RMET. In addition, the Eyes Test Revised was administered as it is more suitable to evaluate ToM during childhood. Results supported the positive association between vmHRV and ToM abilities, replicating and extending previous results obtained in young adults. The current study adds to the existing literature pointing to HRV as a putative biomarker of social cognition abilities.

Mindreading quality versus quantity: A theoretically and empirically motivated two-factor structure for individual differences in adults' mindreading.

Existing methods for studying individual differences in adults' mindreading often lack good psychometric characteristics. Moreover, it remains unclear, even in theory, how mindreading varies in adults who already possess an understanding of mental states. In this pre-registered study, it was hypothesised that adults vary in their motivation for mindreading and in the degree to which their answers on mindreading tasks are appropriate (context-sensitive). These factors are confounded in existing measures as they do not differentiate between the frequency of mental state terms (MST), indicative of motivation, and the quality of an explanation. Using an innovative scoring system, the current study examined whether individual differences in adult undergraduate psychology students' (N = 128) answer quality and / or quantity of explicit references to others' mental states on two open-ended response mindreading tasks were separable constructs, accounted for by mindreading motivation, and related differentially to measures previously linked with mindreading (e.g., religiosity, loneliness, social network size). A two-factor and one-factor model both provided acceptable fit. Neither model showed significant associations with mindreading motivation. However, a two-factor model (with MST and response appropriateness loading onto separate factors) provided greater explanatory power. Specifically, MST was positively associated with religiosity and response appropriateness was negatively associated with religiosity, whilst the one-factor solution did not predict any socially relevant outcomes. This provides some indication that mindreading quantity and mindreading quality may be distinguishable constructs in the structure of individual differences in mindreading.

Does a high threshold of sensory responsiveness affect the development of pretend play in children on the autism spectrum?

BACKGROUND: Among the current avenues of research into the origins and development of the autism spectrum, those concerning atypical levels of sensory responsiveness are gaining increasing relevance. Researchers note the relationship of sensory responsiveness in children on the autism spectrum to their motor, cognitive and social development. Current research reports combines the responsiveness to sensory stimuli also with the development of pretend play. Aim of this study was to verify the relationship between the level of development of pretend play and the level of sensory responsiveness in children on the autism spectrum. METHODS: A study was conducted in a group of 63 children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum aged from 3 years and 7 months to 9 years and 3 months using: Pretend Play subscale from the Theory of Mind Mechanism Scale and Sensory Experiences Questionnaire version 2.1. RESULTS: The results revealed that elevated sensory hyporesponsiveness predicted low pretend play skills in the group of participating children. CONCLUSION: The study verified the contribution of the level of sensory hyporesponsiveness to explaining the atypical development of pretend play in children on the autism spectrum.

Examining interpersonal metacognitive monitoring in artificial grammar learning.

This study investigates the observers' ability to monitor the ongoing cognitive processes of a partner who is implicitly learning an artificial grammar. Our hypothesis posits that learners experience metacognitive feelings as they attempt to apply their implicit knowledge, and that observers are capable of detecting and interpreting these feelings as cues of the learner's cognitive state. For instance, learners might encounter affective signals linked to cognitive conflicts and errors at different processing stages, which observers can construe as manifestations of the learner's cognitive dissonance. The research involved 126 participants organized into dyads, with one participant acting as a learner, and the other as an observer. The observer's task was to judge whether the learner agrees with the information presented (consonance judgment) and was limited to reading the learner's nonverbal signals to avoid explicit mindreading. The findings suggest that observers possess mindreading abilities, enabling them to detect both learners' confidence and accuracy in stimuli classification. This extends our understanding of non-verbal mindreading capabilities and indicates that observers can effectively interpret early implicit metacognitive information, even in the absence of explicit self-evaluation from the learners. This research offers significant insights into how individuals interpret others' mental states during implicit learning tasks, particularly in the context of utilizing early affective cues within the Artificial Grammar Learning paradigm.

Mentalization based treatment for a broad range of personality disorders: a naturalistic study.

BACKGROUND: Several studies have observed that mentalization-based treatment (MBT) is an effective treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD), but its effectiveness for other personality disorders (PDs) has hardly been examined. Additionally, the evidence supporting the claim that MBT improves mentalizing capacity is scarce. The present study examined whether (i) patients with a broad range of PDs enrolled in an MBT program would improve on several outcome measures (ii) mentalizing capacity would improve over time; (iii) patients with BPD would improve more than those with non-borderline PDs. METHOD: Personality disorders, psychiatric symptoms, social functioning, maladaptive personality functioning and mentalizing capacity were measured in a group of individuals with various PDs (n = 46) that received MBT. Assessments were made at baseline and after 6, 12, and 18 months of treatment. The severity of psychiatric symptoms, measured using the Outcome Questionnaire 45, was the primary outcome variable. RESULTS: Overall, enrollment in the MBT program was associated with a decrease in psychiatric symptoms and an improvement of personality functioning, social functioning for a mixed group of PDs (all p's ≤ .01). Bigger effect sizes were observed for BPD patients (n = 25) than for patients with non-BPD (n = 21), but the difference failed to reach statistical significance (p = 0.06). A primary analysis showed that the decrease in psychiatric symptoms was significant in BPD patients (p = 0.01), not in non-BPD (p = 0.19) patients. However, a sufficiently powered secondary analysis with imputed data showed that non-BPD patients reported a significant decrease in psychiatric symptoms too (p = 0.01). Mentalizing capacity of the whole group improved over time (d = .68 on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and 1.46 on the Social Cognition and Object Relations System). DISCUSSION: These results suggest that MBT coincides with symptomatic and functional improvement across a broad range of PDs and shows that MBT is associated with improvements in mentalizing capacity. As the study is not experimental in design, we cannot make causal claims. CONCLUSION: Mentalization-based treatment may be an effective treatment for patients with a broad range of PDs. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study design was approved by the Leiden University Ethical Committee.

Dogs do not use their own experience with novel barriers to infer others' visual access.

Despite extensive research into the Theory of Mind abilities in non-human animals, it remains controversial whether they can attribute mental states to other individuals or whether they merely predict future behaviour based on previous behavioural cues. In the present study, we tested pet dogs (in total, N = 92) on adaptations of the 'goggles test' previously used with human infants and great apes. In both a cooperative and a competitive task, dogs were given direct experience with the properties of novel screens (one opaque, the other transparent) inserted into identical, but differently coloured, tunnels. Dogs learned and remembered the properties of the screens even when, later on, these were no longer directly visible to them. Nevertheless, they were not more likely to follow the experimenter's gaze to a target object when the experimenter could see it through the transparent screen. Further, they did not prefer to steal a forbidden treat first in a location obstructed from the experimenter's view by the opaque screen. Therefore, dogs did not show perspective-taking abilities in this study in which the only available cue to infer others' visual access consisted of the subjects' own previous experience with novel visual barriers. We conclude that the behaviour of our dogs, unlike that of infants and apes in previous studies, does not show evidence of experience-projection abilities.

Individual and team profiling to support theory of mind in artificial social intelligence.

We describe an approach aimed at helping artificial intelligence develop theory of mind of their human teammates to support team interactions. We show how this can be supported through the provision of quantifiable, machine-readable, a priori information about the human team members to an agent. We first show how our profiling approach can capture individual team member characteristic profiles that can be constructed from sparse data and provided to agents to support the development of artificial theory of mind. We then show how it captures features of team composition that may influence team performance. We document this through an experiment examining factors influencing the performance of ad-hoc teams executing a complex team coordination task when paired with an artificial social intelligence (ASI) teammate. We report the relationship between the individual and team characteristics and measures related to task performance and self-reported perceptions of the ASI. The results show that individual and emergent team profiles were able to characterize features of the team that predicted behavior and explain differences in perceptions of ASI. Further, the features of these profiles may interact differently when teams work with human versus ASI advisors. Most strikingly, our analyses showed that ASI advisors had a strong positive impact on low potential teams such that they improved the performance of those teams across mission outcome measures. We discuss these findings in the context of developing intelligent technologies capable of social cognition and engage in collaborative behaviors that improve team effectiveness.

Network and state specificity in connectivity-based predictions of individual behavior.

Predicting individual behavior from brain functional connectivity (FC) patterns can contribute to our understanding of human brain functioning. This may apply in particular if predictions are based on features derived from circumscribed, a priori defined functional networks, which improves interpretability. Furthermore, some evidence suggests that task-based FC data may yield more successful predictions of behavior than resting-state FC data. Here, we comprehensively examined to what extent the correspondence of functional network priors and task states with behavioral target domains influences the predictability of individual performance in cognitive, social, and affective tasks. To this end, we used data from the Human Connectome Project for large-scale out-of-sample predictions of individual abilities in working memory (WM), theory-of-mind cognition (SOCIAL), and emotion processing (EMO) from FC of corresponding and non-corresponding states (WM/SOCIAL/EMO/resting-state) and networks (WM/SOCIAL/EMO/whole-brain connectome). Using root mean squared error and coefficient of determination to evaluate model fit revealed that predictive performance was rather poor overall. Predictions from whole-brain FC were slightly better than those from FC in task-specific networks, and a slight benefit of predictions based on FC from task versus resting state was observed for performance in the WM domain. Beyond that, we did not find any significant effects of a correspondence of network, task state, and performance domains. Together, these results suggest that multivariate FC patterns during both task and resting states contain rather little information on individual performance levels, calling for a reconsideration of how the brain mediates individual differences in mental abilities.

Bilingualism Predicts Affective Theory of Mind in Autistic Adults.

PURPOSE: This study examined the impact of bilingualism on affective theory of mind (ToM) and social prioritization (SP) among autistic adults compared to neurotypical comparison participants. METHOD: Fifty-two (25 autistic, 27 neurotypical) adult participants (ages 21-35 years) with varying second language (L2) experience, ranging from monolingual to bilingual, completed an affective ToM task. A subset of this sample also completed a dynamic eye-tracking task designed to capture differences in time spent looking at social aspects of a scene (SP). Four language groups were compared on task performance (monolingual autism and neurotypical, bilingual autism and neurotypical), followed by analyses examining the contribution of L2 experience, autism characteristics, and social face prioritization on affective ToM, controlling for verbal IQ. Finally, we conducted an analysis to identify the contribution of SP on affective ToM when moderated by autism status and L2 experience, controlling for verbal IQ. RESULTS: The monolingual autism group performed significantly worse than the other three groups (bilingual autism, monolingual neurotypical, and bilingual neurotypical) on the affective ToM task; however, there were no significant differences between the bilingual autism group compared to the monolingual and bilingual neurotypical groups. For autistic individuals, affective ToM capabilities were positively associated with both verbal IQ and L2 experience but did not relate to autism characteristics or SP during eye tracking. Neurotypical participants showed greater SP during the eye-tracking task, and SP did not relate to L2 or autism characteristics for autistic individuals. SP and verbal IQ predicted affective ToM performance across autism and neurotypical groups, but this relationship was moderated by L2 experience; SP more strongly predicted affective ToM performance among participants with lower L2 experience (e.g., monolingual) and had less of an impact for those with higher L2 experience. CONCLUSION: This study provides support for a bilingual advantage in affective ToM for autistic individuals. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25696083.

Multidimensional neural representations of social features during movie viewing.

The social world is dynamic and contextually embedded. Yet, most studies utilize simple stimuli that do not capture the complexity of everyday social episodes. To address this, we implemented a movie viewing paradigm and investigated how everyday social episodes are processed in the brain. Participants watched one of two movies during an MRI scan. Neural patterns from brain regions involved in social perception, mentalization, action observation and sensory processing were extracted. Representational similarity analysis results revealed that several labeled social features (including social interaction, mentalization, the actions of others, characters talking about themselves, talking about others and talking about objects) were represented in the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and middle temporal gyrus (MTG). The mentalization feature was also represented throughout the theory of mind network, and characters talking about others engaged the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), suggesting that listeners may spontaneously infer the mental state of those being talked about. In contrast, we did not observe the action representations in the frontoparietal regions of the action observation network. The current findings indicate that STG and MTG serve as key regions for social processing, and that listening to characters talk about others elicits spontaneous mental state inference in TPJ during natural movie viewing.

Examining the Effects of a Brief, Fully Self-Guided Mindfulness Ecological Momentary Intervention on Empathy and Theory-of-Mind for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: The utility of brief mindfulness ecological momentary interventions (EMIs) to improve empathy and theory-of-mind has been underinvestigated, particularly in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). OBJECTIVE: In this randomized controlled trial, we aimed to examine the efficacy of a 14-day, fully self-guided, mindfulness EMI on the empathy and theory-of-mind domains for GAD. METHODS: Adults (aged ≥18 y) diagnosed with GAD were randomized to a mindfulness EMI (68/110, 61.8%) or self-monitoring app (42/110, 38.2%) arm. They completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index self-report empathy measure and theory-of-mind test (Bell-Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task) at prerandomization, postintervention, and 1-month follow-up (1MFU) time points. Hierarchical linear modeling was conducted with the intent-to-treat principle to determine prerandomization to postintervention (pre-post intervention) and prerandomization to 1MFU (pre-1MFU) changes, comparing the mindfulness EMI to self-monitoring. RESULTS: Observed effects were generally stronger from pre-1MFU than from pre-post intervention time points. From pre-post intervention time points, the mindfulness EMI was more efficacious than the self-monitoring app on fantasy (the ability to imagine being in others' shoes; between-intervention effect size: Cohen d=0.26, P=.007; within-intervention effect size: Cohen d=0.22, P=.02 for the mindfulness EMI and Cohen d=-0.16, P=.10 for the self-monitoring app). From pre-1MFU time points, the mindfulness EMI, but not the self-monitoring app, improved theory-of-mind (a window into others' thoughts and intentions through abstract, propositional knowledge about their mental states, encompassing the ability to decipher social cues) and the fantasy, personal distress (stress when witnessing others' negative experiences), and perspective-taking (understanding others' perspective) empathy domains. The effect sizes were small to moderate (Cohen d=0.15-0.36; P<.001 to P=.01) for significant between-intervention effects from pre-1MFU time points. Furthermore, the within-intervention effect sizes for these significant outcomes were stronger for the mindfulness EMI (Cohen d=0.30-0.43; P<.001 to P=.03) than the self-monitoring app (Cohen d=-0.12 to 0.21; P=.001 to P>.99) from pre-1MFU time points. No between-intervention and within-intervention effects on empathic concern (feeling affection, compassion, and care when observing others in distress, primarily attending to their emotional well-being) were observed from pre-post intervention and pre-1MFU time points. CONCLUSIONS: The brief mindfulness EMI improved specific domains of empathy (eg, fantasy, personal distress, and perspective-taking) and theory-of-mind with small to moderate effect sizes in persons with GAD. Higher-intensity, self-guided or coach-facilitated, multicomponent mindfulness EMIs targeting the optimization of social relationships are likely necessary to improve the empathic concern domain in this population. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04846777; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04846777.

The medium modulates the medusa effect: Perceived mind in analogue and digital images.

We effortlessly attribute mental states to other people. We also attribute minds to people depicted in pictures, albeit at a reduced strength. Intriguingly, this reduction in intensity continues for images of people within a photograph itself-a phenomenon known as the Medusa effect. The present study replicates the Medusa effect for images shown digitally and on paper. Crucially, we demonstrate that we can reduce the magnitude of the Medusa effect by depicting people digitally within a computer screen (e.g., as if one were interacting with a person on a Zoom call). As well as modulating the quantity of the Medusa effect, changes in pictorial medium can affect the quality of the perceived mind. Specifically, the dimension of Experience-what a depicted person can feel-reflected participants' observations that they could interact with an onscreen person embedded in a digital image. This combination of a robust Medusa effect and the ability to control it both quantitatively and qualitatively opens many avenues for its future application, such as manipulating and measuring mind in immersive media.

Development and validation of the Mentalizing Emotions Questionnaire: A self-report measure for mentalizing emotions of the self and other.

Mentalizing describes the ability to imagine mental states underlying behavior. Furthermore, mentalizing allows one to identify, reflect on, and make sense of one's emotional state as well as to communicate one's emotions to oneself and others. In existing self-report measures, the process of mentalizing emotions in oneself and others was not captured. Therefore, the Mentalizing Emotions Questionnaire (MEQ; current version in German) was developed. In Study 1 (N = 510), we explored the factor structure of the MEQ with an Exploratory Factor Analysis. The factor analysis identified one principal (R2 = .65) and three subfactors: the overall factor was mentalizing emotions, the three subdimensions were self, communicating and other. In Study 2 (N = 509), we tested and confirmed the factor structure of the 16-items MEQ in a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFI = .959, RMSEA = .078, SRMR = .04) and evaluated its psychometric properties, which showed excellent internal consistency (α = .92 - .95) and good validity. The MEQ is a valid and reliable instrument which assesses the ability to mentalize emotions provides incremental validity to related constructs such as empathy that goes beyond other mentalization questionnaires.

Prosodic and Visual Cues Facilitate Irony Comprehension by Mandarin-Speaking Children With Cochlear Implants.

PURPOSE: This study investigated irony comprehension by Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants, focusing on how prosodic and visual cues contribute to their comprehension, and whether second-order Theory of Mind is required for using these cues. METHOD: We tested 52 Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (aged 3-7 years) and 52 age- and gender-matched children with normal hearing. All children completed a Theory of Mind test and a story comprehension test. Ironic stories were presented in three conditions, each providing different cues: (a) context-only, (b) context and prosody, and (c) context, prosody, and visual cues. Comparisons were conducted on the accuracy of story understanding across the three conditions to examine the role of prosodic and visual cues. RESULTS: The results showed that, compared to the context-only condition, the additional prosodic and visual cues both improved the accuracy of irony comprehension for children with cochlear implants, similar to their normal-hearing peers. Furthermore, such improvements were observed for all children, regardless of whether they passed the second-order Theory of Mind test or not. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to demonstrate the benefits of prosodic and visual cues in irony comprehension, without reliance on second-order Theory of Mind, for Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants. It implies potential insights for utilizing prosodic and visual cues in intervention strategies to promote irony comprehension.

Overlapping neural correlates underpin theory of mind and semantic cognition: Evidence from a meta-analysis of 344 functional neuroimaging studies.

Key unanswered questions for cognitive neuroscience include whether social cognition is underpinned by specialised brain regions and to what extent it simultaneously depends on more domain-general systems. Until we glean a better understanding of the full set of contributions made by various systems, theories of social cognition will remain fundamentally limited. In the present study, we evaluate a recent proposal that semantic cognition plays a crucial role in supporting social cognition. While previous brain-based investigations have focused on dissociating these two systems, our primary aim was to assess the degree to which the neural correlates are overlapping, particularly within two key regions, the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ). We focus on activation associated with theory of mind (ToM) and adopt a meta-analytic activation likelihood approach to synthesise a large set of functional neuroimaging studies and compare their results with studies of semantic cognition. As a key consideration, we sought to account for methodological differences across the two sets of studies, including the fact that ToM studies tend to use nonverbal stimuli while the semantics literature is dominated by language-based tasks. Overall, we observed consistent overlap between the two sets of brain regions, especially in the ATL and TPJ. This supports the claim that tasks involving ToM draw upon more general semantic retrieval processes. We also identified activation specific to ToM in the right TPJ, bilateral anterior mPFC, and right precuneus. This is consistent with the view that, nested amongst more domain-general systems, there is specialised circuitry that is tuned to social processes.