Behavioral and Social Neuroscience
Neural processes involved in cognitive and affective Theory of mind:
a validation of verbal task
1,2
1
1,2
Martin Jáni , Martin Gajdoš , Tomáš Kašpárek
1
Central European Institute of Technology - Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
2
Department of Psychiatry, University hospital Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
Introduction
Figure 1. FMRI contrasts between conditions
Self report
Impairment in Theory of Mind (mentalizing) might be
due to insufficient (undermentalizing) or excessive
(overmentalizing) inferences about other people's
mental states.
Links were found between paranoid thoughts and
Theory of mind, but disagreement exists whether it is
due to impaired cognitive or affective perspectivetaking.
GPTS (Green Paranoid Thoughts Scale)
TAS 20 (Toronto Alexithymia Scale)
QCAE (Questionnaire of Cognitvite and Affective
Empathy)
FMRI methods
Functional images were collected using 3 T Siemens
Prisma.
Aim
The development of fMRI compatible test which
would encompass and differentiate between:
We used SPM 12 (http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/)
for data analysis.
a) cognitive and affective mentalizing
We applied motion correction and the data were not
regressed for white matter or cerebrospinal fluid.
b) overmentalizing and undermentalizng
All results reported are using FWE correction p < 0.05.
Method
Results
Participants
Behavioral results
35 (17 female) healthy participants completed the
Theory of mind (ToM) task during fMRI session.
Mean age was 23.22 (SD = 2.57, range = 19 - 30).
Affective mentalizing > Baseline
Relationship between mentalizing score and
paranoid thoughs were not significant. Relationship
between behavioral data are reported in Table 1.
Cognitive > Baseline
Table 1. Correlations between behavioral data
Task
60 stories ToM stories, 3 conditions:
1) 20 stories focused on intentions of others
(cognitive mentalizing)
2) 20 stories for emotions of others (affective
mentalizing)
Cognitive > Affective
3) 20 control stories involving physical causality
used as a baseline
One story was viewed for 30.5 seconds and
participants had 15 seconds to answer questions.
Table 2. FMRI contrasts between conditions
Affective > Cognitive
Conclusion
· Activation in mentalizing network and
comparable engagement during
affective and cognitive mentalizing
including medial prefrontal cortex and
superior temporal sulci with temporal
poles.
Partcipants were choosing between 4 options for
answers:
a) no mentalizing
b) undermentalizing
· Differential activation between
cognitive and affective mentalizing.
c) mentalizing
d) overmentalizing
· No significant relationship between
paranoid thoughts and overmentalizing
(scores and activations), possibly due to
the small variaton in healthy sample.
Task example (for cognitive mentalizing)
Daniel wants to get a new working project, but his boss
Richard gave the project to someone else. Daniel said to
Richard: „It's a pity, I do not have that much to do at the
moment.“
a) Richard did not give the project to Daniel
· The task differentiates between
affective and cognitive Theory of Mind
and will be used in clinical population in
the future to explore neural substrates for
undermentalizing and overmentalizing in
both cognitive and affective conditions.
b) That Daniel has does not have much to do at the
moment.
Funding
What did Daniel want to say?
c) Daniel wanted Richard to give him the project.
This work was supported by Ministry of Education,
Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under the
projects CEITEC 2020 [LQ 1601] and IMGTMS
[MUNI/A/1133/2016]
d) Daniel thought that the boss is underestimating him.
contact person
address
Martin Jáni
[email protected]
Masaryk University | IN: 00216224
Central European Institute of Technology
Kamenice 753/5, CZ-62500 Brno, Czech Republic
www.ceitec.muni.cz | [email protected]
gsm.: +420 774 191 164
Poster number: 4224