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Mapping Mentalising in the Brain

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The Neural Basis of Mentalizing

Abstract

This is a short history of mentalising research embedded in the framework of cognitive neuroscience. It is guided by our personal experience of research with neurotypical and autistic individuals, children and adults. We review our reasons for treating the mentalising system as a specialised system within the social brain and speculate on the role of its major components, mPFC, TPJ/STS and precuneus/PCC regions. We reflect on the origins of the concept of mentalising as a baffling cognitive ability to attribute mental states to others and oneself, and look at changes in our understanding of this concept. The most far-reaching change was probably driven by the need to differentiate between explicit and implicit mentalising, while a further change seems to be heralded by the systematic study of metacognitive processes in the brain. We conclude that future research will benefit from the development of computational models and greater use of interactive paradigms.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Richard Passingham, Leo Schilbach, Kevin Ochsner, and Michael Gilead for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

Chris and Uta Frith receive no funding and declare no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellcome Centre for Human NeuroImaging, University College London, London, UK

    Chris D. Frith

  2. Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK

    Chris D. Frith

  3. UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK

    Chris D. Frith

  4. UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK

    Uta Frith

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  1. Chris D. Frith
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Correspondence to Chris D. Frith .

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  1. Psychology Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

    Michael Gilead

  2. Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Kevin N. Ochsner

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Frith, C.D., Frith, U. (2021). Mapping Mentalising in the Brain. In: Gilead, M., Ochsner, K.N. (eds) The Neural Basis of Mentalizing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51890-5_2

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