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 a...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2021-09-01
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| Series: | NeuroImage |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921005358 |
| _version_ | 1818657973259468800 |
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| author | Miriam E. Weaverdyck Mark A. Thornton Diana I. Tamir |
| author_facet | Miriam E. Weaverdyck Mark A. Thornton Diana I. Tamir |
| author_sort | Miriam E. Weaverdyck |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T03:49:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-309b5283c8f6415f9cb265e8e19986d3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1095-9572 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T03:49:59Z |
| publishDate | 2021-09-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | NeuroImage |
| spelling | doaj.art-309b5283c8f6415f9cb265e8e19986d32022-12-21T22:04:47ZengElsevierNeuroImage1095-95722021-09-01238118258The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalitiesMiriam E. Weaverdyck0Mark A. Thornton1Diana I. Tamir2Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States; Corresponding author.Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States; Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United StatesEach 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.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921005358Social cognitionMentalizingfMRIRepresentational similarity analysis |
| spellingShingle | Miriam E. Weaverdyck Mark A. Thornton Diana I. Tamir The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities NeuroImage Social cognition Mentalizing fMRI Representational similarity analysis |
| title | The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities |
| title_full | The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities |
| title_fullStr | The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities |
| title_full_unstemmed | The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities |
| title_short | The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities |
| title_sort | representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities |
| topic | Social cognition Mentalizing fMRI Representational similarity analysis |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921005358 |
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