How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCS
When inferring the mental states of others, individuals’ judgments are influenced by their own state of mind, an effect often referred to as egocentricity. Self–other differentiation is key for an accurate interpretation of other’s mental states, especially when these differ from one’s own states. I...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-04-01
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| Series: | Brain Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/4/512 |
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| author | Anne Weigand Irene Trilla Lioba Enk Garret O’Connell Kristin Prehn Timothy R. Brick Isabel Dziobek |
| author_facet | Anne Weigand Irene Trilla Lioba Enk Garret O’Connell Kristin Prehn Timothy R. Brick Isabel Dziobek |
| author_sort | Anne Weigand |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | When inferring the mental states of others, individuals’ judgments are influenced by their own state of mind, an effect often referred to as egocentricity. Self–other differentiation is key for an accurate interpretation of other’s mental states, especially when these differ from one’s own states. It has been suggested that the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) is causally involved in overcoming egocentricity in the affective domain. In a double-blind randomized study, 47 healthy adults received anodal (1 mA, 20 min) or sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the rSMG prior to performing a newly developed paradigm, the self–other facial emotion judgment (SOFE) task. In this task, participants made judgments of facial emotional expressions while having been previously confronted with congruent or incongruent emotion-inducing situations. To differentiate between emotional and cognitive egocentricity, participants additionally completed an established visual perspective-taking task. Our results confirmed the occurrence of emotional egocentric biases during the SOFE task. No conclusive evidence of a general role of the rSMG in emotional egocentricity was found. However, active as compared to sham tDCS induced descriptively lower egocentric biases when judging incongruent fearful faces, and stronger biases when judging incongruent happy faces, suggesting emotion-specific tDCS effects on egocentric biases. Further, we found significant tDCS effects on cognitive egocentricity. Results of the present study expanded our understanding of emotional egocentricity and point towards emotion-specific patterns of the underlying functionality. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T12:15:09Z |
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| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3425 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T12:15:09Z |
| publishDate | 2021-04-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Brain Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-23b59bcee2b84266a3a10d2e15f106e72023-11-21T15:55:30ZengMDPI AGBrain Sciences2076-34252021-04-0111451210.3390/brainsci11040512How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCSAnne Weigand0Irene Trilla1Lioba Enk2Garret O’Connell3Kristin Prehn4Timothy R. Brick5Isabel Dziobek6Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, GermanyBerlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, GermanyBerlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, GermanyBerlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, GermanyMSH Medical School Hamburg, University of Applied Sciences and Medical University, Am Kaiserkai 1, 20457 Hamburg, GermanyDepartment of Human Development and Family Studies and Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, 231 Health and Human Development Building, University Park, PA 16802, USABerlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, GermanyWhen inferring the mental states of others, individuals’ judgments are influenced by their own state of mind, an effect often referred to as egocentricity. Self–other differentiation is key for an accurate interpretation of other’s mental states, especially when these differ from one’s own states. It has been suggested that the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) is causally involved in overcoming egocentricity in the affective domain. In a double-blind randomized study, 47 healthy adults received anodal (1 mA, 20 min) or sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the rSMG prior to performing a newly developed paradigm, the self–other facial emotion judgment (SOFE) task. In this task, participants made judgments of facial emotional expressions while having been previously confronted with congruent or incongruent emotion-inducing situations. To differentiate between emotional and cognitive egocentricity, participants additionally completed an established visual perspective-taking task. Our results confirmed the occurrence of emotional egocentric biases during the SOFE task. No conclusive evidence of a general role of the rSMG in emotional egocentricity was found. However, active as compared to sham tDCS induced descriptively lower egocentric biases when judging incongruent fearful faces, and stronger biases when judging incongruent happy faces, suggesting emotion-specific tDCS effects on egocentric biases. Further, we found significant tDCS effects on cognitive egocentricity. Results of the present study expanded our understanding of emotional egocentricity and point towards emotion-specific patterns of the underlying functionality.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/4/512egocentric biasself–other differentiationsupramarginal gyrustDCStranscranial direct current stimulation |
| spellingShingle | Anne Weigand Irene Trilla Lioba Enk Garret O’Connell Kristin Prehn Timothy R. Brick Isabel Dziobek How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCS Brain Sciences egocentric bias self–other differentiation supramarginal gyrus tDCS transcranial direct current stimulation |
| title | How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCS |
| title_full | How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCS |
| title_fullStr | How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCS |
| title_full_unstemmed | How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCS |
| title_short | How Much of Me Do I See in Other Minds? Modulating Egocentricity in Emotion Judgments by tDCS |
| title_sort | how much of me do i see in other minds modulating egocentricity in emotion judgments by tdcs |
| topic | egocentric bias self–other differentiation supramarginal gyrus tDCS transcranial direct current stimulation |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/4/512 |
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