Theory of mind network activity is associated with metaethical judgment: An item analysis

The neurobiology of openness as a personality trait

Openness is a multifaceted behavioral disposition that encompasses personal, interpersonal, and cultural dimensions. It has been suggested that the interindividual variability in openness as a personality trait is influenced by various environmental and genetic factors, as well as differences in brain functional and structural connectivity patterns along with their various associated cognitive processes. Alterations in degree of openness have been linked to several aspects of health and disease, being impacted by both physical and mental health, substance use, and neurologic conditions. This review aims to explore the current state of knowledge describing the neurobiological basis of openness and how individual differences in openness can manifest in brain health and disease.

How unexpected events are processed in theory of mind regions: A conceptual replication

Recent research in social neuroscience has postulated that Theory of Mind (ToM) regions play a role in processing social prediction error (PE: the difference between what was expected and what was observed). Here, we tested whether PE signal depends on the type of prior information people use to make predictions - an agent's prior mental states (e.g., beliefs, desires, preferences) or an agent's prior behavior - as well as the type of information that confirms or violates such predictions. That is, does prior information about mental states (versus behavior) afford stronger predictions about an agent's subsequent mental states or behaviors? Additionally, when information about an agent's prior mental states or behavior is available, is PE signal strongest when information about an agent's subsequent mental state (vs behavior) is revealed? In line with prior research, results suggest that DMPFC, LTPJ, and RTPJ are recruited more for unexpected than expected outcomes. However, PE signal does not seem to discriminate on the basis of prior or outcome information type. These findings suggest that ToM regions may flexibly incorporate any available information to make predictions about, monitor, and perhaps explain, inconsistencies in social agents.

How Imagination and Memory Shape the Moral Mind

Interdisciplinary research has proposed a multifaceted view of human cognition and morality, establishing that inputs from multiple cognitive and affective processes guide moral decisions. However, extant work on moral cognition has largely overlooked the contributions of episodic representation. The ability to remember or imagine a specific moment in time plays a broadly influential role in cognition and behavior. Yet, existing research has only begun exploring the influence of episodic representation on moral cognition. Here, we evaluate the theoretical connections between episodic representation and moral cognition, review emerging empirical work revealing how episodic representation affects moral decision-making, and conclude by highlighting gaps in the literature and open questions. We argue that a comprehensive model of moral cognition will require including the episodic memory system, further delineating its direct influence on moral thought, and better understanding its interactions with other mental processes to fundamentally shape our sense of right and wrong.

The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities

Each individual experiences mental states in their own idiosyncratic way, yet perceivers can accurately understand a huge variety of states across unique individuals. How do they accomplish this feat? Do people think about their own anger in the same ways as another person's anger? Is reading about someone's anxiety the same as seeing it? Here, we test the hypothesis that a common conceptual core unites mental state representations across contexts. Across three studies, participants judged the mental states of multiple targets, including a generic other, the self, a socially close other, and a socially distant other. Participants viewed mental state stimuli in multiple modalities, including written scenarios and images. Using representational similarity analysis, we found that brain regions associated with social cognition expressed stable neural representations of mental states across both targets and modalities. Together, these results suggest that people use stable models of mental states across different people and contexts.

Disruption on right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation affects moral judgment: No difference between first- and third-personal narration with TMS

Brain imaging studies have observed that the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) was involved in the information processing of moral judgments and in the understanding of the beliefs/intentions of other people. However, most of these studies used moral stories in the third-person point of view. This study aimed to investigate to what extent the disruption of rTPJ affected moral judgments with stories in first-person narration by non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The study hypothesized that, first, TMS would disrupt moral judgment, causing one to neglect the beliefs of perpetrators and to make judgments based on eventual harmful outcomes. Thus, the experimental group would be more tolerant towards "intentional harm" and more prohibitive towards "accidental harm" in comparison to sham. Secondly, TMS might disrupt the mechanism to change perspectives - TMS would influence the moral judgment of the stories narrated in third person (perspective of others), but not those narrated in first person (perspective of oneself). The results demonstrated that (1) TMS accelerated moral judgment (Experiment 1), which might be due to the practice effect from the order of TMS application (Experiment 2); (2) TMS affected moral judgment in several conditions. Participants adopted a more prohibitive attitude towards conditions of "intentional harm", as well as "accidental harm" with TMS disruption; (3) The effect of personal perspective was marginally significant, revealing a tendency "to be stringent with oneself and tolerant towards others". However, the interaction between personal perspectives and TMS was insignificant. No difference between the first- and third-person perspectives was found with TMS disruption.

Theory of Mind Following the Violation of Strong and Weak Prior Beliefs

Recent work in psychology and neuroscience has revealed differences in impression updating across social distance and group membership. Observers tend to maintain prior impressions of close (vs. distant) and ingroup (vs. outgroup) others in light of new information, and this belief maintenance is at times accompanied by increased activity in Theory of Mind regions. It remains an open question whether differences in the strength of prior beliefs, in a context absent social motivation, contribute to neural differences during belief updating. We devised a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to isolate the impact of experimentally induced prior beliefs on mentalizing activity. Participants learned about targets who performed 2 or 4 same-valenced behaviors (leading to the formation of weak or strong priors), before performing 2 counter-valenced behaviors. We found a greater change in activity in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and right temporo-parietal junction following the violation of strong versus weak priors, and a greater change in activity in DMPFC and left temporo-parietal junction following the violation of positive versus negative priors. These results indicate that differences in neural responses to unexpected behaviors from close versus distant others, and ingroup versus outgroup members, may be driven in part by differences in the strength of prior beliefs.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) item analysis of empathy and theory of mind

In contrast to conventional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis across participants, item analysis allows generalizing the observed neural response patterns from a specific stimulus set to the entire population of stimuli. In the present study, we perform an item analysis on an fMRI paradigm (EmpaToM) that measures the neural correlates of empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM). The task includes a large stimulus set (240 emotional vs. neutral videos to probe empathic responding and 240 ToM or factual reasoning questions to probe ToM), which we tested in two large participant samples (N = 178, N = 130). Both, the empathy‐related network comprising anterior insula, anterior cingulate/dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, and dorsal temporoparietal junction/supramarginal gyrus (TPJ) and the ToM related network including ventral TPJ, superior temporal gyrus, temporal poles, and anterior and posterior midline regions, were observed across participants and items. Regression analyses confirmed that these activations are predicted by the empathy or ToM condition of the stimuli, but not by low‐level features such as video length, number of words, syllables or syntactic complexity. The item analysis also allowed for the selection of the most effective items to create optimized stimulus sets that provide the most stable and reproducible results. Finally, reproducibility was shown in the replication of all analyses in the second participant sample. The data demonstrate (a) the generalizability of empathy and ToM related neural activity and (b) the reproducibility of the EmpaToM task and its applicability in intervention and clinical imaging studies.