Abstract
Mentalizing like theory of mind is often not more than a cover term for social cognition that involves reasoning with mental terms, regardless of its precise nature: use of a theory, simulation, or teleology based on practical reasoning. We advocate that research should help differentiate between these options and not treat it as a uniform ability as meta-analyses show that different tasks activate different brain areas. We focus on perspective as the central aspect of the mental and find that its involvement makes an important distinction in development and in brain imaging. A large variety of tasks that require representation of different modes of presentation are mastered around 4 years. Comparable tasks for adults all activate an area in left IPL and frequently in precuneus. Processing perspective results in common development and a common brain region. To accommodate this finding, theory of mind and simulation theory need to make special assumptions. It corresponds to a natural transition from basic teleology to teleology-in-perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
The obvious alternative is to merge the two files into one containing all information from both files. One advantage of linking separate files lies in easier error correction. Should it turn out that, after all, the man wasn’t Chomsky, then the link between stranger-file and Chomsky-file can simply be cut and each person remains associated with the appropriate information. Moreover, Anderson and Hastie (1974) have shown that people after receiving identity information tend to keep separate representations of the same individual before merging them. For simplicity’s sake, we will therefore only talk about linking coreferential files.
- 2.
The terms “TPJ” and “IPL” are sometimes used inconsistently and require some clarification. As we have found in a literature review (Schurz, Tholen, Perner, Mars, & Sallet, 2017), researchers commonly use “TPJ” to refer to both structures of the Inferior Parietal (e.g., Angular Gyrus) and the Temporal Lobe (e.g., posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus/Middle Temporal Gyrus). The label “IPL,” on the other hand, refers to an anatomical area found in standard brain atlases (i.e., gyral parcellations). The IPL is usually assumed to be confined by the Inferior Parietal Sulcus dorsally and the Lateral Sulcus ventrally. In the fMRI studies we review in this chapter, we used the label “IPL” as defined in the popular AAL atlas of the brain (Tzourio-Mazoyer et al., 2002).
- 3.
Of the 14 studies in this analysis, three used Level 1 and all others were clear cases of Level 2 perspective taking. We checked whether the two groups tended to activate particular regions differently, but there was no noticeable difference. Since children pass Level 1 tasks earlier, presumably because they can give correct answers without an understanding of perspective, one would have expected a difference. However, adults might spontaneously concern themselves with the appearance of what the other person sees, which would activate perspective processing areas just as Level 2 tasks would.
- 4.
We have several unpublished student projects with many different variations of the identity problem. They all showed the same age trend and consistently correlations with the false-belief test.
- 5.
There are no developmental studies that show a correlation of comparable mathematical prowess with false-belief understanding. However, several studies (see Carey, 2009) show that children start to understand the cardinality principle of counting sets around 4 years, and Sarnecka and Wright (2013) found that with that principle children also understand equinumerosity.
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Acknowledgments
The research on which this work is based was funded by the Austrian Science Fund’s Doctoral College (DK W 1233-G17) “Imaging the Mind: Connectivity and Higher Cognitive Function,” the individual project FWF I 3518-G24 as part of the DACH collaborative project, “The structure and development of understanding actions and reasons,”, an Erwin Schroedinger Fellowship FWF-J4009-B27 and a MarieSkłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship MSCA-IF 844734. Michael Gilead’s many helpful improvement suggestions were gratefully implemented.
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Perner, J., Aichhorn, M., Tholen, M.G., Schurz, M. (2021). Mental Files and Teleology. In: Gilead, M., Ochsner, K.N. (eds) The Neural Basis of Mentalizing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51890-5_13
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