RESUMO
Theory of Mind research has shown that we spontaneously take into account other's beliefs. In the current study, we investigate, with a spontaneous Theory of Mind (ToM) task, if this belief representation also applies to nonhuman-like agents. In a series of three experiments, we show here that we do not spontaneously take into account beliefs of nonhuman-like others, or at least we do it to a lesser extent than for human and human-like agents. Further, the experience we have with the other agent, in our case a dog, does not modulate spontaneous ToM: the same pattern of results was obtained when dog owners and no owners were compared. However, when more attention was attracted to the dog behavior, participants' behavior was influenced by the beliefs of the dog. In sum, spontaneous belief representation seems to be primarily restricted to human and human-like agents, but can be facilitated when more attention is drawn to a nonhuman-like agent.
Assuntos
Cães , Teoria da Mente , Animais , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Propriedade , Animais de Estimação/psicologiaRESUMO
The literature on action observation revealed contradictory results regarding the activation of different subregions of the medial prefrontal cortex when observing unusual behaviour. Error observation research has shown that the posterior part of the medial prefrontal cortex is more active when observing unusual behaviour compared to usual behaviour while action understanding research has revealed some mixed results concerning the role of the anterior part of the medial prefrontal cortex during the observation of unusual actions. Here, we resolve this discrepancy in the literature by showing that different parts of the medial prefrontal cortex are active depending on whether an observed unusual behaviour is intentional or not. While the posterior medial prefrontal cortex is more active when we observe unusual accidental actions compared to unusual intentional actions, a more anterior part of the medial prefrontal cortex is more active when we observe unusual intentional actions compared to unusual accidental actions.
Assuntos
Compreensão/fisiologia , Lobo Frontal/fisiologia , Intenção , Percepção de Movimento/fisiologia , Movimento , Reconhecimento Visual de Modelos/fisiologia , Adulto , Mapeamento Encefálico , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Adulto JovemRESUMO
In the last decade, research on error and conflict processing has become one of the most influential research areas in the domain of cognitive control. There is now converging evidence that a specific part of the posterior frontomedian cortex (pFMC), the rostral cingulate zone (RCZ), is crucially involved in the processing of errors and conflict. However, error-related research has focused primarily on a specific error type, namely, response errors. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether errors on the task level rely on the same neural and functional mechanisms. Here we report a dissociation of both error types in the pFMC: whereas response errors activate the RCZ, task errors activate the dorsal frontomedian cortex. Although this last region shows an overlap in activation for task and response errors on the group level, a closer inspection of the single-subject data is more in accordance with a functional anatomical dissociation. When investigating brain areas related to conflict on the task and response levels, a clear dissociation was perceived between areas associated with response conflict and with task conflict. Overall, our data support a dissociation between response and task levels of processing in the pFMC. In addition, we provide additional evidence for a dissociation between conflict and errors both at the response level and at the task level.
Assuntos
Córtex Cerebral/fisiologia , Conflito Psicológico , Desempenho Psicomotor , Mapeamento Encefálico , Sinais (Psicologia) , Feminino , Lobo Frontal/fisiologia , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Adulto JovemRESUMO
How errors and conflict are processed in the human brain, has been extensively investigated over the last decades. In this review, we argue that error research has mainly focused on one type of errors, namely errors at the response level. Furthermore, research on conflict and errors has primarily used a very restricted set of experimental paradigms, raising the question as to whether the results from this research can be generalized to other forms of errors and conflict. We thus argue to approach errors and conflict from a broader perspective.
Assuntos
Mapeamento Encefálico , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Conflito Psicológico , Desempenho Psicomotor/fisiologia , Encéfalo/anatomia & histologia , Humanos , Tempo de ReaçãoRESUMO
The concept of pupillary contagion refers to the automatic imitation of observed pupil size and reflects shared autonomic arousal. Previous studies have linked the experience of sadness to changes in pupil size. Accordingly, in a 2006 Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience article, Harrison, Singer, Rotshtein, Dolan, and Critchley found evidence for pupillary contagion when the observed face expressed sadness but not when it showed a neutral, happy, or angry expression. However, differences in eye movements might have influenced these results. Furthermore, the relatively small sample size of the study merits additional replication. In the current study, we modified the experimental design of Harrison et al. by requiring high attention toward the eye region of the face, which minimized differences in eye movements between facial expressions. In doing so, we demonstrate that the degree of pupillary contagion is independent of the observed emotional expression. Instead, pupil size and emotional expression of the shown face independently contribute to the observer's pupil size. The role of pupillary contagion for social communication is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Assuntos
Empatia/fisiologia , Emoções Manifestas/fisiologia , Movimentos Oculares/fisiologia , Expressão Facial , Pupila/fisiologia , Adulto , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Adulto JovemRESUMO
Automatic imitation is the finding that movement execution is facilitated by compatible and impeded by incompatible observed movements. In the past 15 years, automatic imitation has been studied to understand the relation between perception and action in social interaction. Although research on this topic started in cognitive science, interest quickly spread to related disciplines such as social psychology, clinical psychology, and neuroscience. However, important theoretical questions have remained unanswered. Therefore, in the present meta-analysis, we evaluated seven key questions on automatic imitation. The results, based on 161 studies containing 226 experiments, revealed an overall effect size of gz = 0.95, 95% CI [0.88, 1.02]. Moderator analyses identified automatic imitation as a flexible, largely automatic process that is driven by movement and effector compatibility, but is also influenced by spatial compatibility. Automatic imitation was found to be stronger for forced choice tasks than for simple response tasks, for human agents than for nonhuman agents, and for goalless actions than for goal-directed actions. However, it was not modulated by more subtle factors such as animacy beliefs, motion profiles, or visual perspective. Finally, there was no evidence for a relation between automatic imitation and either empathy or autism. Among other things, these findings point toward actor-imitator similarity as a crucial modulator of automatic imitation and challenge the view that imitative tendencies are an indicator of social functioning. The current meta-analysis has important theoretical implications and sheds light on longstanding controversies in the literature on automatic imitation and related domains. (PsycINFO Database Record
Assuntos
Ciência Cognitiva/métodos , Comportamento Imitativo/fisiologia , Movimento/fisiologia , Adolescente , Adulto , Transtorno Autístico/psicologia , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Empatia/fisiologia , Feminino , Humanos , Relações Interpessoais , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Movimento (Física) , Adulto JovemRESUMO
Humans and dogs have interacted for millennia. As a result, humans (and especially dog owners) sometimes try to interpret dog behaviour. While there is extensive research on the brain regions that are involved in mentalizing about other peoples' behaviour, surprisingly little is known of whether we use these same brain regions to mentalize about animal behaviour. In this fMRI study we investigate whether brain regions involved in mentalizing about human behaviour are also engaged when observing dog behaviour. Here we show that these brain regions are more engaged when observing dog behaviour that is difficult to interpret compared to dog behaviour that is easy to interpret. Interestingly, these results were not only obtained when participants were instructed to infer reasons for the behaviour but also when they passively viewed the behaviour, indicating that these brain regions are activated by spontaneous mentalizing processes.
Assuntos
Comportamento Animal , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Adulto , Animais , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagem , Cães , Feminino , Humanos , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Estimulação Luminosa , Teoria da Mente , Adulto JovemRESUMO
There is extensive discussion on whether spontaneous and explicit forms of ToM are based on the same cognitive/neural mechanisms or rather reflect qualitatively different processes. For the first time, we analyzed the BOLD signal for false belief processing by directly comparing spontaneous and explicit ToM task versions. In both versions, participants watched videos of a scene including an agent who acquires a true or false belief about the location of an object (belief formation phase). At the end of the movies (outcome phase), participants had to react to the presence of the object. During the belief formation phase, greater activity was found for false vs true belief trials in the right posterior parietal cortex. The ROI analysis of the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), confirmed this observation. Moreover, the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC) was active during the outcome phase, being sensitive to violation of both the participant's and agent's expectations about the location of the object. Activity in the TPJ and aMPFC was not modulated by the spontaneous/explicit task. Overall, these data show that neural mechanisms for spontaneous and explicit ToM overlap. Interestingly, a dissociation between TPJ and aMPFC for belief tracking and outcome evaluation, respectively, was also found.
Assuntos
Mapeamento Encefálico/métodos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética/métodos , Enquadramento Psicológico , Teoria da Mente/fisiologia , Adulto , Atenção/fisiologia , Dominância Cerebral/fisiologia , Feminino , Percepção de Forma/fisiologia , Humanos , Masculino , Percepção de Movimento , Orientação/fisiologia , Consumo de Oxigênio/fisiologia , Lobo Parietal/fisiologia , Córtex Pré-Frontal/fisiologia , Probabilidade , Lobo Temporal/fisiologia , Adulto JovemAssuntos
COVID-19 , Doenças Reumáticas , Anticorpos Antivirais , Formação de Anticorpos , Humanos , SARS-CoV-2 , VacinaçãoRESUMO
Research on error observation has focused predominantly on situations in which individuals are passive observers of errors. In daily life, however, we are often jointly responsible for the mistakes of others. In the current study, we examined how information on agency is integrated in the error observation network. It was found that activation in the anterior insula but not in the posterior medial frontal cortex or lateral prefrontal cortex differentiates between observed errors for which we are partly responsible or not. Interestingly, the activation pattern of the AI was mirrored by feelings of guilt and shame. These results suggest that the anterior insula is crucially involved in evaluating the consequences of our actions for other persons. Consequently, this region may be thought of as critical in guiding social behavior.
Assuntos
Córtex Cerebral/fisiologia , Observação , Comportamento Social , Feminino , Culpa , Humanos , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Rede Nervosa/fisiologia , Estimulação Luminosa , Desempenho Psicomotor , Tempo de Reação , Vergonha , Adulto JovemRESUMO
The observation that performance does not improve following errors contradicts the traditional view on error monitoring (Fiehler et al., 2005; Núñez Castellar et al., 2010; Notebaert and Verguts, 2011). However, recent findings suggest that typical laboratory tasks provided us with a narrow window on error monitoring (Jentzsch and Dudschig, 2009; Desmet et al., 2012). In this study we investigated strategy-use after errors in a mental arithmetic task. In line with our hypothesis, this more complex task did show increased performance after errors. More specifically, switching to a different strategy after an error resulted in improved performance, while repeating the same strategy resulted in worse performance. These results show that in more ecological valid tasks, post-error behavioral improvement can be observed.
RESUMO
Recently, it has been shown that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is involved in error execution as well as error observation. Based on this finding, it has been argued that recognizing each other's mistakes might rely on motor simulation. In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we directly tested this hypothesis by investigating whether medial prefrontal activity in error observation is restricted to situations that enable simulation. To this aim, we compared brain activity related to the observation of errors that can be simulated (human errors) with brain activity related to errors that cannot be simulated (machine errors). We show that medial prefrontal activity is not only restricted to the observation of human errors but also occurs when observing errors of a machine. In addition, our data indicate that the MPFC reflects a domain general mechanism of monitoring violations of expectancies.
Assuntos
Mapeamento Encefálico , Retroalimentação Psicológica , Córtex Pré-Frontal/fisiologia , Desempenho Psicomotor/fisiologia , Comportamento Social , Feminino , Humanos , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Observação , Oxigênio/sangue , Córtex Pré-Frontal/irrigação sanguínea , Adulto JovemRESUMO
In a previous study, it was proposed that executing a task leads to task strengthening. In other words, task activation at the moment of response execution determines subsequent switch effects (Steinhauser & Hübner, 2006). The authors investigated this issue by comparing switch effects after task and response errors. However, the use of bivalent stimulus-response mappings might have obscured some of the effects. Therefore, we replicated the experiment using univalent stimulus-response mappings. With this adjusted design, which overcomes some shortcomings of the original study, we were able to replicate the finding of switch benefits after task errors. Closer inspection of the data showed the importance of preexecution processes on subsequent switch effects. In a second experiment, we further elaborated on these preexecution processes. More precisely, we investigated the effect of task preparation on subsequent switch effects. Taken together, our data extend current accounts of task switching by showing that the preparatory processes occurring before the response on trial n influence the switch cost on trial n + 1.
Assuntos
Atenção/fisiologia , Sinais (Psicologia) , Função Executiva/fisiologia , Tempo de Reação/fisiologia , Análise de Variância , Feminino , Humanos , Inibição Psicológica , Masculino , Testes Neuropsicológicos , Reconhecimento Visual de Modelos , Estimulação Luminosa , Estudantes , UniversidadesRESUMO
Until now, error and conflict adaptation have been studied extensively using simple laboratory tasks. A common finding is that responses slow down after errors. According to the conflict monitoring theory, performance should also improve after an error. However, this is usually not observed. In this study, we investigated whether the characteristics of the experimental paradigms normally used could explain this absence. More precisely, these paradigms have in common that behavioural adaptation has little room to be expressed. We therefore studied error and conflict adaptation effects in a task that encounters the richness of everyday life's behavioural adaptation--namely, mental arithmetic, where multiple solution strategies are available. In accordance with our hypothesis, we observed that post-error accuracy increases after errors in mental arithmetic. No support for conflict adaptation in mental arithmetic was found. Implications for current theories of conflict and error monitoring are discussed.
Assuntos
Adaptação Psicológica , Conflito Psicológico , Matemática , Resolução de Problemas/fisiologia , Adolescente , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Desempenho Psicomotor , Tempo de Reação/fisiologia , Adulto JovemRESUMO
In a recent study, G. Kuhn and Z. Dienes (2005) reported that participants previously exposed to a set of musical tunes generated by a biconditional grammar subsequently preferred new tunes that respected the grammar over new ungrammatical tunes. Because the study and test tunes did not share any chunks of adjacent intervals, this result may be construed as straightforward evidence for the implicit learning of a structure that was only governed by nonlocal dependency rules. It is shown here that the grammar modified the statistical distribution of perceptually salient musical events, such as the probability that tunes covered an entire octave. When the influence of these confounds was removed, the effect of grammaticality disappeared.