Mindreading mindreading: Using multivariate pattern analysis to decode the neural basis of mental state ascription.

读心术：使用多元模式分析来解码心理状态归因的神经基础。

• 批准号: ES/R005028/1
• 负责人: I A Apperly
• 金额: $ 50.76万
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FR005028%2F1
• 关键词: Mindreading; mindreading; Using; multivariate; pattern; Mindreading; mindreading; Using; multivariate; pattern

Mindreading (also known as mentalising, or Theory of Mind) is the ability to think about what others see, know, think, want and intend, and is thought to be a fundamental basis of social interaction and communication. Mindreading has been widely studied in young children and infants, is known to be impaired in people with autism and schizophrenia, and more recently its cognitive and neural basis has begun to be studied in adults. Research using brain imaging, and examining the effects of brain injury and brain stimulation, converges on the view that some brain regions are distinctively involved in mindreading compared with similar tasks that do not involve understanding other minds, leading to suggestions that they comprise a "social" or "mindreading brain network". It is typically assumed that these brain regions represent mindreading information. However, a recent alternative suggestion is that mindreading information is represented elsewhere, perhaps in "semantic" brain regions, and that the mindreading brain network merely controls access to this information. Testing between these views is critical for our understanding of how the brain supports mindreading, and has implications for long-debated theoretical accounts about how we mindread.The fundamental unit of mindreading is a representation that relates a particular AGENT (e.g., Mariam) to a particular CONTENT (e.g., ...thinks there's a rabbit in the box). We will ask participants to hold such information briefly in mind using tasks that present pictures of people and simple scenarios that depict what they are thinking. Thus, participants will be led to hold in mind something like "Mariam thinks there's a rabbit in the box, but I know there's really a bell", with the particular AGENT and the particular CONTENTS varying from trial to trial. If "mindreading brain regions" are centrally involved in representing such information, then it should be possible to decode the AGENT who is thinking (Mariam in this case), and the CONTENT they are thinking about (Rabbit) from patterns of brain activity in these areas. However, if "mindreading brain regions" actually only direct attention to information represented "semantic" brain regions then, it should be possible to decode AGENT and CONTENT information from activity in "semantic" brain areas, but not "mindreading" areas. The work is made possible by recent developments in tasks for assessing mindreading and analytic techniques for decoding information from fine-grained patterns of human brain activity. Our tasks present mindreading problems for a large number of trials over which AGENT and CONTENT are systematically varied. Three experiments will focus on CONTENT (Experiment 1), AGENT+CONTENT (Experiment 2), and the co-ordination of CONTENT information over time (Experiment 3). Experiments 1 and 2 will employ fMRI, which gives excellent spatial resolution, while Experiment 3 will use EEG, which gives excellent temporal resolution. All three experiments will employ advanced techniques for multivariate analysis of brain activity data to examine whether we can indeed decode information about who is thinking what from "mindreading" or "semantic" brain regions. Our studies will show whether regions of the social brain actually encode information necessary for mindreading, and determine the order in which such information is activated. These results will have implications for how the brain supports mindreading, and how mindreading may be disrupted through brain injury, or atypical brain function in disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

思维阅读（也称为智力或心理理论）是思考别人看到，了解，思考，想要和打算的内容，被认为是社会互动和交流的基本基础。在自闭症和精神分裂症患者中，人们对年幼的儿童和婴儿进行了广泛的研究，并且最近在成年人中开始研究其认知和神经基础。使用脑部成像并检查脑损伤和脑刺激的影响的研究是，与不涉及其他思想的类似任务相比，某些大脑区域与人数明显涉及思维，这导致他们构成了“社交”或“思维大脑网络”。通常假定这些大脑区域代表思维信息。但是，最近的另一种建议是，思维阅读信息在其他地方，也许是在“语义”大脑区域中表示，而思维大脑网络仅控制着对该信息的访问。这些观点之间的测试对于我们对大脑如何支持思维方式的理解至关重要，并且对我们如何思考的长期理论说明具有影响。思维的基本单位是将特定代理商（例如Mariam）与特定内容相关的表示形式（例如，...认为盒子里有兔子）。我们将要求参与者简短地牢记这些信息，以介绍人的图片和简单场景描述他们在想什么。因此，参与者将被带到诸如“玛丽亚姆认为盒子里有一只兔子，但我知道确实有铃铛”之类的事情，其中​​特定的经纪人和特定内容因审判而异。如果“思维大脑区域”集中参与代表此类信息，那么应该可以解码正在思考的代理（在这种情况下为Mariam）以及他们考虑的内容（兔子）从这些区域的大脑活动模式中。但是，如果“思维大脑区域”实际上仅直接关注表示“语义”大脑区域的信息，那么应该可以从“语义”大脑区域中的活动中解码代理和内容信息，而不是“思维”领域。最近在评估思维阅读和分析技术的任务中，从人类大脑活动的细粒度模式中解码信息的最新发展使这项工作成为可能。我们的任务呈现出大量试验的思维问题，这些试验是系统地变化的大量试验。三个实验将集中在内容（实验1），代理+内容（实验2）和内容信息的协调过程中（实验3）。实验1和2将采用fMRI，该fMRI提供出色的空间分辨率，而实验3将使用脑电图，该脑电图提供出色的时间分辨率。这三个实验将采用先进的技术来对大脑活动数据进行多元分析，以检查我们是否确实可以解码有关谁在思考“思维”或“语义”脑区域的信息。我们的研究将表明，社交大脑区域是否实际上编码了思维阅读所需的信息，并确定激活此类信息的顺序。这些结果将对大脑如何支持思维阅读以及如何通过脑损伤或非典型的大脑功能（如自闭症和精神分裂症）的非典型大脑功能造成影响。