Biological motion perception links diverse facets of theory of mind during middle childhood

Mentalization, Oxytocin, and Cortisol in the General Population

Although evidence suggests the role of oxytocin and cortisol in social cognition and emotion regulation, it is less known how their peripheral levels are related to social perception (biological motion detection) and mentalization (self-reflection, emotional awareness, and affect regulation) in the general population. We assessed 150 healthy individuals from the general community on a mentalization questionnaire, a scale measuring the intensity of positive and negative emotions, and measured oxytocin and cortisol levels in the saliva. Oxytocin but not cortisol level and biological motion detection predicted mentalization abilities. There was a positive correlation between mentalization and positive emotions and between mentalization and biological motion detection. These results suggest that oxytocin, but not cortisol, plays a role in low-level perceptual and self-reflective aspects of social cognition.

Interactions within the social brain: Co-activation and connectivity among networks enabling empathy and Theory of Mind

Empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) have classically been studied as separate social functions, however, recent advances demonstrate the need to investigate the two in interaction: naturalistic settings often blur the distinction of affect and cognition and demand the simultaneous processing of such different stimulus dimensions. Here, we investigate how empathy and ToM related brain networks interact in contexts wherein multiple cognitive and affective demands must be processed simultaneously. Building on the findings of a recent meta-analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis, we perform meta-analytic connectivity modeling to determine patterns of task-context specific network changes. We analyze 140 studies including classical empathy and ToM tasks, as well as complex social tasks. For studies at the intersection of empathy and ToM, neural co-activation patterns included areas typically associated with both empathy and ToM. Network integration is discussed as a means of combining mechanisms across unique behavioral domains. Such integration may enable adaptive behavior in complex, naturalistic social settings that require simultaneous processing of a multitude of different affective and cognitive information.

Ties between reading faces, bodies, eyes, and autistic traits

While reading covered with masks faces during the COVID-19 pandemic, for efficient social interaction, we need to combine information from different sources such as the eyes (without faces hidden by masks) and bodies. This may be challenging for individuals with neuropsychiatric conditions, in particular, autism spectrum disorders. Here we examined whether reading of dynamic faces, bodies, and eyes are tied in a gender-specific way, and how these capabilities are related to autistic traits expression. Females and males accomplished a task with point-light faces along with a task with point-light body locomotion portraying different emotional expressions. They had to infer emotional content of displays. In addition, participants were administered the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, modified and Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire. The findings show that only in females, inferring emotions from dynamic bodies and faces are firmly linked, whereas in males, reading in the eyes is knotted with face reading. Strikingly, in neurotypical males only, accuracy of face, body, and eyes reading was negatively tied with autistic traits. The outcome points to gender-specific modes in social cognition: females rely upon merely dynamic cues while reading faces and bodies, whereas males most likely trust configural information. The findings are of value for examination of face and body language reading in neuropsychiatric conditions, in particular, autism, most of which are gender/sex-specific. This work suggests that if male individuals with autistic traits experience difficulties in reading covered with masks faces, these deficits may be unlikely compensated by reading (even dynamic) bodies and faces. By contrast, in females, reading covered faces as well as reading language of dynamic bodies and faces are not compulsorily connected to autistic traits preventing them from paying high costs for maladaptive social interaction.

N400 differences between physical and mental metaphors: The role of Theories of Mind

Whether Theory of Mind (ToM) contributes to metaphor understanding has been largely investigated in language acquisition and decay. Yet we know very little about the role of ToM in real-time processing of metaphors in neurotypical adults. Here, we tested the relationship between ToM and metaphor through Event Related Potentials (ERPs) by capitalizing on the difference between metaphors inviting inferences on physical (Boxers are pandas) vs. mental aspects (Teachers are books). Physical metaphors involved a larger and sustained negativity compared to mental ones. This pattern resembled concreteness effects and suggests that physical metaphors may benefit from both verbal and perceptual information. Moreover, higher scores in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), but not in the Animation task, were associated with a reduction of the N400 amplitude for both physical and mental metaphors. When exploring the ERP temporal trajectory with Generalized Additive Mixed Modeling, earlier differences between metaphors characterized individuals with higher RMET scores. Among the various ToM components, thus, emotion recognition seems to be involved in the processing of metaphors in general, with an earlier impact on the mental type. These findings highlight the multifaceted nature of metaphor, at the crossroad of language, social and perceptual experience.

Reading language of the eyes

The need for assessment of social skills in clinical and neurotypical populations has led to the widespread, and still increasing use of the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test' (RMET) developed more than two decades ago by Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues for evaluation of social cognition in autism. By analyzing most recent clinical and brain imaging data, we illuminate a set of factors decisive for using the RMET. Converging evidence indicates: (i) In neurotypical individuals, RMET scores are tightly correlated with other social skills (empathy, emotional intelligence, and body language reading); (ii) The RMET assesses recognition of facial affect, but also heavily relies on receptive language skills, semantic knowledge, and memory; (iii) RMET performance is underwritten by the large-scale ensembles of neural networks well-outside the social brain; (iv) The RMET is limited in its capacity to differentiate between neuropsychiatric conditions as well as between stages and severity of a single disorder, though it reliably distinguishes individuals with altered social cognition or elevated pathological traits from neurotypical persons; (v) Merely gender (as a social construct) rather than neurobiological sex influences performance on the RMET; (vi) RMET scores do not substantially decline in healthy aging, and they are higher with higher education level, cognitive abilities, literacy, and mental well-being; (vii) Accuracy on the RMET, and engagement of the social brain, are greater when emotions are expressed and recognized by individuals with similar cultural/ethnic background. Further research is required to better inform usage of the RMET as a tool for swift and reliable examination of social cognition. In light of comparable visual input from the RMET images and faces covered by masks due to COVID-19 regulations, the analysis is of value for keeping efficient social interaction during the current pandemic, in particular, in professional settings related to social communication.

Reading Covered Faces

Covering faces with masks, due to mandatory pandemic safety regulations, we can no longer rely on the habitual daily-life information. This may be thought-provoking for healthy people, but particularly challenging for individuals with neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions. Au fait research on reading covered faces reveals that: 1) wearing masks hampers facial affect recognition, though it leaves reliable inferring basic emotional expressions; 2) by buffering facial affect, masks lead to narrowing of emotional spectrum and dampen veridical evaluation of counterparts; 3) masks may affect perceived face attractiveness; 4) covered (either by masks or other veils) faces have a certain signal function introducing perceptual biases and prejudices; 5) reading covered faces is gender- and age-specific, being more challenging for males and more variable even in healthy aging; 6) the hampering effects of masks on social cognition occur over the globe; and 7) reading covered faces is likely to be supported by the large-scale assemblies of the neural circuits far beyond the social brain. Challenges and limitations of ongoing research and parallels to the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test are assessed. Clarification of how masks affect face reading in the real world, where we deal with dynamic faces and have entrée to additional valuable social signals such as body language, as well as the specificity of neural networks underlying reading covered faces calls for further tailored research.

Deficits in Working Memory and Theory of Mind May Underlie Difficulties in Social Perception of Children with ADHD

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are prone to peer rejection and disliking due to difficulties in social perception and interaction. To address social perception impairments in ADHD, we examined children with ADHD in a noisy biological motion (BM) direction discrimination paradigm in association with sociocognitive factors including emotion regulation, theory of mind (TOM), and working memory compared to healthy controls. Our results showed that children with ADHD were poorer in discriminating BM direction in noisy environments (F (1, 36) = 4.655, p=0.038). Moreover, a significant correlation was found between working memory and TOM with BM discrimination in an ADHD group (r = 0.442, p=0.01, and r = 0.403, p=0.05, respectively). Our findings could suggest that social perception in noisy scenarios may be affected by memory and social cognitive abilities of children with ADHD.

Watching Movies Unfold, a Frame-by-Frame Analysis of the Associated Neural Dynamics

Our lives unfold as sequences of events. We experience these events as seamless, although they are composed of individual images captured in between the interruptions imposed by eye blinks and saccades. Events typically involve visual imagery from the real world (scenes), and the hippocampus is frequently engaged in this context. It is unclear, however, whether the hippocampus would be similarly responsive to unfolding events that involve abstract imagery. Addressing this issue could provide insights into the nature of its contribution to event processing, with relevance for theories of hippocampal function. Consequently, during magnetoencephalography (MEG), we had female and male humans watch highly matched unfolding movie events composed of either scene image frames that reflected the real world, or frames depicting abstract patterns. We examined the evoked neuronal responses to each image frame along the time course of the movie events. Only one difference between the two conditions was evident, and that was during the viewing of the first image frame of events, detectable across frontotemporal sensors. Further probing of this difference using source reconstruction revealed greater engagement of a set of brain regions across parietal, frontal, premotor, and cerebellar cortices, with the largest change in broadband (1–30 Hz) power in the hippocampus during scene-based movie events. Hippocampal engagement during the first image frame of scene-based events could reflect its role in registering a recognizable context perhaps based on templates or schemas. The hippocampus, therefore, may help to set the scene for events very early on.

Explaining Variance in Social Symptoms of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The social symptoms of autism spectrum disorder are likely influenced by multiple psychological processes, yet most previous studies have focused on a single social domain. In school-aged autistic children (n = 49), we compared the amount of variance in social symptoms uniquely explained by theory of mind (ToM), biological motion perception, empathy, social reward, and social anxiety. Parent-reported emotional contagion-the aspect of empathy in which one shares another's emotion-emerged as the most important predictor, explaining 11-14% of the variance in social symptoms, with higher levels of emotional contagion predicting lower social symptom severity. Our findings highlight the role of mutual emotional experiences in social-interactive success, as well as the limitations of standard measures of ToM and social processing in general.

Cortical temporal hierarchy is immature in middle childhood

The development of successful social-cognitive abilities requires one to track, accumulate, and integrate knowledge of other people's mental states across time. Regions of the brain differ in their temporal scale (i.e., a cortical temporal hierarchy) and those receptive to long temporal windows may facilitate social-cognitive abilities; however, the cortical development of long timescale processing remains to be investigated. The current study utilized naturalistic viewing to examine cortical development of long timescale processing and its relation to social-cognitive abilities in middle childhood - a time of expanding social spheres and increasing social-cognitive abilities. We found that, compared to adults, children exhibited reduced low-frequency power in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and reduced specialization for long timescale processing within the TPJ and other regions broadly implicated in the default mode network and higher-order visual processing. Further, specialization for long timescales within the right dorsal medial prefrontal cortex became more 'adult-like' as a function of children's comprehension of character mental states. These results suggest that cortical temporal hierarchy in middle childhood is immature and may be important for an accurate representation of complex naturalistic social stimuli during this age.

Untangling the Ties Between Social Cognition and Body Motion: Gender Impact

We proved the viability of the general hypothesis that biological motion (BM) processing serves as a hallmark of social cognition. We assumed that BM processing and inferring emotions through BM (body language reading) are firmly linked and examined whether this tie is gender-specific. Healthy females and males completed two tasks with the same set of point-light BM displays portraying angry and neutral locomotion of female and male actors. For one task, perceivers had to indicate actor gender, while for the other, they had to infer the emotional content of locomotion. Thus, with identical visual input, we directed task demands either to BM processing or inferring of emotion. This design allows straight comparison between sensitivity to BM and recognition of emotions conveyed by the same BM. In addition, perceivers were administered a set of photographs from the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), with which they identified either emotional state or actor gender. Although there were no gender differences in performance on BM tasks, a tight link occurred between recognition accuracy of emotions and gender through BM in males. In females only, body language reading (both accuracy and response time) was associated with performance on the RMET. The outcome underscores gender-specific modes in visual social cognition and triggers investigation of body language reading in a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Theory of mind development from adolescence to adulthood: Testing the two-component model

The ability to infer mental and affective states of others is crucial for social functioning. This ability, denoted as Theory of Mind (ToM), develops rapidly during childhood, yet results on its development across adolescence and into young adulthood are rare. In the present study, we tested the two-component model, measuring age-related changes in social-perceptual and social-cognitive ToM in a sample of 267 participants between 11 and 25 years of age. Additionally, we measured language, reasoning, and inhibitory control as major covariates. Participants inferred mental states from non-verbal cues in a social-perceptual task (Eye Test) and from stories with faux pas in a social-cognitive task (Faux Pas Test). Results showed substantial improvement across adolescence in both ToM measures and in the covariates. Analysis with linear mixed models (LMM) revealed specific age-related growth for the social-perceptual component, while the age-related increase of the social-cognitive component fully aligned with the increase of the covariates. These results support the distinction between ToM components and indicate that adolescence is a crucial period for developing social-perceptual ToM abilities. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? To date, much research has been dedicated to Theory of Mind (ToM) development in early and middle childhood. However, only a few studies have examined development of ToM in adolescence. Studies so far suggest age-related differences in ToM between adolescents and young adults. What this study adds The study offers several methodological advantages including a large sample size with a continuous distribution of age (age 11-25) and the use of a comprehensive test battery to assess ToM and covariates (language, executive functions, reasoning). The results provide evidence for asymmetries in the development of two ToM components (social-perceptual and social-cognitive; the two-component account) across the studied age range: the social perceptual component showed specific development, while the age-related increase of the social-cognitive component fully aligned with increase of the covariates. Adolescence is a crucial period for developing social-perceptual ToM abilities.

Social network size relates to developmental neural sensitivity to biological motion

The ability to perceive others' actions and goals from human motion (i.e., biological motion perception) is a critical component of social perception and may be linked to the development of real-world social relationships. Adult research demonstrates two key nodes of the brain's biological motion perception system-amygdala and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS)-are linked to variability in social network properties. The relation between social perception and social network properties, however, has not yet been investigated in middle childhood-a time when individual differences in social experiences and social perception are growing. The aims of this study were to (1) replicate past work showing amygdala and pSTS sensitivity to biological motion in middle childhood; (2) examine age-related changes in the neural sensitivity for biological motion, and (3) determine whether neural sensitivity for biological motion relates to social network characteristics in children. Consistent with past work, we demonstrate a significant relation between social network size and neural sensitivity for biological motion in left pSTS, but do not find age-related change in biological motion perception. This finding offers evidence for the interplay between real-world social experiences and functional brain development and has important implications for understanding disorders of atypical social experience.

The Two-Systems Account of Theory of Mind: Testing the Links to Social- Perceptual and Cognitive Abilities

According to the two-systems account of theory of mind (ToM), understanding mental states of others involves both fast social-perceptual processes, as well as slower, reflexive cognitive operations (Frith and Frith, 2008; Apperly and Butterfill, 2009). To test the respective roles of specific abilities in either of these processes we administered 15 experimental procedures to a large sample of 343 participants, testing ability in face recognition and holistic perception, language, and reasoning. ToM was measured by a set of tasks requiring ability to track and to infer complex emotional and mental states of others from faces, eyes, spoken language, and prosody. We used structural equation modeling to test the relative strengths of a social-perceptual (face processing related) and reflexive-cognitive (language and reasoning related) path in predicting ToM ability. The two paths accounted for 58% of ToM variance, thus validating a general two-systems framework. Testing specific predictor paths revealed language and face recognition as strong and significant predictors of ToM. For reasoning, there were neither direct nor mediated effects, albeit reasoning was strongly associated with language. Holistic face perception also failed to show a direct link with ToM ability, while there was a mediated effect via face recognition. These results highlight the respective roles of face recognition and language for the social brain, and contribute closer empirical specification of the general two-systems account.

Social motivation and implicit theory of mind in children with autism spectrum disorder

According to the social motivation theory of autism, children who develop Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have early deficits in social motivation, which is expressed by decreased attention to social information. These deficits are said to lead to impaired socio-cognitive development, such as theory of mind (ToM). There is little research focused on the relation between social motivation and ToM in this population. The goal of the present study was to investigate the link between one aspect of social motivation, social orienting, and ToM in preschoolers with ASD. It was expected that, in contrast to typically developing (TD) children, children with ASD would show impaired performance on tasks measuring social orienting and ToM. It was also expected that children's performance on the social orienting tasks would be correlated with their performance on the ToM task. A total of 17 children with ASD and 16 TD children participated in this study. Participants completed two social orienting tasks, a face preference task and a biological motion preference task, as well an implicit false belief task. Results reveal that TD children, but not children with ASD, exhibited social preference as measured by a preference for faces and biological motion. Furthermore, children with ASD tended to perform worse on the ToM task compared to their TD counterparts. Performance on the social motivation tasks and the ToM task tended to be related but only for the TD children. These findings suggest that ToM is multifaceted and that motivational deficits might have downstream effects even on implicit ToM. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1834-1844. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

LAY SUMMARY

The goal of the present study was to examine the link between poor attention to social information and mindreading abilities in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Results demonstrated that children with ASD tended to perform worse than neurotypical children on both social orienting and theory of mind tasks. Preference for human faces and motion tended to be related but only for the neurotypical children. These findings provide partial support for the social motivation theory.