A Slide Rule for the Evaluation of Geochemical and Mineral Survey Data. EUR 4608.

<p>FB = false belief, TB/MC = true belief/memory control, *Control trials include TB/MC + filler trials, ** Such deficit could be combined with difficulties in processing the input information if the performance on the control trials is below the cut-off albeit better than the performance on the FB trials.</p

Investigation des traitements cognitifs et neuraux sous-jacents à la Théorie de l'Esprit

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others. This cognitive ability is currently conceptualized as consisting of several components that differ according to several dimensions. The aim of this thesis was to refine the cognitive and neural architecture of ToM. We demonstrated the existence of a new ToM component which can be selectively altered in brain-damaged patients. This component consists of a mechanism which allows inferring « spontaneously » the perspective of others, in other words without explicit instruction to do so. Our data have also highlighted that the left posterior temporo-parietal junction plays a necessary role to support this cognitive function. Finally, our work has also allow us to propose a new diagnostic procedure to detect ToM deficits and showed the importance of the consideration of the different components of ToM in the evaluation of this ability in a clinical population.La Théorie de l’Esprit (TdE) réfère à la capacité à attribuer des états mentaux à soi-même et aux autres personnes. Cette capacité cognitive est actuellement conceptualisée comme étant constituée de plusieurs composants qui se distinguent selon plusieurs dimensions. Cette thèse avait pour objectif de raffiner l’architecture cognitive et neurale de la TdE. Nous avons démontré l’existence d’un nouveau composant au sein de la TdE qui peut être altéré sélectivement chez un patient cérébro-lésé. Ce composant consiste en un mécanisme qui permet d’inférer « spontanément » la perspective des autres, c’est-à-dire sans qu’aucune instruction de le faire n’ait été donnée. Nos données ont également démontré que la jonction temporo-pariétale postérieure gauche jouait un rôle nécessaire pour soutenir cette fonction cognitive. Enfin, notre travail a permis de mettre en place une nouvelle démarche diagnostique des troubles de la TdE et a mis en évidence l’importance de prendre en considération les différents composants de la TdE lors de l’évaluation de cette capacité auprès d’une population clinique.(PSYE - Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation) -- UCL, 201

Assessing the integrity of the cognitive processes involved in belief reasoning by means of two nonverbal tasks: Rationale, normative data collection and illustration with brain-damaged patients

Every day, we engage in social interactions with other people which require understanding their as well as our own mental states. Such capacity is commonly referred to as Theory of Mind (ToM). Disturbances of ToM are often reported in diverse pathologies which affect brain functioning and lead to problems in social interactions. Identifying ToM deficits is thus crucial to guide the clinicians in the establishment of adequate rehabilitation strategies for patients. Previous studies have demonstrated that ToM is not a unitary function yet currently there are very few standardized tests which allow identifying the type of cognitive processes affected when a patient exhibits a ToM deficit. In the current study, we present two belief reasoning tasks which have been used in previous research to disentangle two types of processes involved in belief reasoning: self-perspective inhibition and the spontaneous inference of another person’s belief. A three-step procedure was developed to provide clinicians with the tools to interpret the patients’ performances on the tasks. First, these tasks were standardized and normative data was collected on a sample of 124 healthy participants aged between 18 and 74. Data collected showed a decrease in performance as a function of age only in the task that loaded most in spontaneous other-perspective demands. There was however no effect of gender or educational level. Cut-off scores to identify deficits were then calculated for the different age groups separately. Secondly, the three-step procedure was applied to 21 brain-damaged patients and showed a large diversity of profiles, including selective deficits of the two targeted ToM processes. The diversity of profiles shows the importance to take into account the multiple facets of ToM during the diagnosis and rehabilitation of patients with suspected ToM deficits

Impaired spontaneous belief inference following acquired damage to the left posterior temporoparietal junction

Efficient social interactions require taking into account other people’s mental states such as their beliefs, intentions or emotions. Recent studies have shown that in some social situations at least, we do spontaneously take into account others’ mental states. The extent to which we have dedicated brain areas for such spontaneous perspective taking is however still unclear. Here, we report two brain-damaged patients whose common lesions were almost exclusively in the left posterior temporoparietal junction (TPJp) and who both showed the same striking and distinctive theory of mind (ToM) deficit. More specifically, they had an inability to take into account someone else’s belief unless they were explicitly instructed to tell what that other person thinks or what that person will do. These patients offer a unique insight into the causal link between a specific subregion of the TPJ and a specific cognitive facet of ToM

French and English Version of the Reality-Unknown Nonverbal False Belief Task

<div>The material provided here consists of ONE of TWO tasks that need to be jointly administrated (see Figshare collection to download the other complementing task). </div><div><br></div><div>Please note that the “reality-unknown” task has to be presented BEFORE the “reality-known” task in order to provide reliable diagnostic information. The task is presented in the following article:</div><div><br></div><div>Biervoye, A., Meert, G., Apperly, I.A., & Samson, D. (under review). Assessing the integrity of the cognitive processes involved in belief reasoning by means of two nonverbal tasks: rationale, normalization and illustration with brain-damaged patients.</div><div><br></div><div>The video files are the same for the French and English versions of the task only the scoring sheet and powerpoint files differ across the French and English version.</div><div><br></div><div>Please read carefully the README file.</div

Extensive visual training in adulthood significantly reduces the face inversion effect

The poorer recognition performance for inverted as compared to upright faces is one of the most well-known and robust behavioral effects observed in the field of face perception. Here we investigated whether extensive training at individualizing a large set of inverted faces in adulthood could significantly reduce this inversion effect for novel faces. This issue is important because inverted faces are as complex as upright faces but they are not visually experienced during development. Moreover, inverted faces violate the biological constraints, present at birth, for preferential looking (i.e., a larger number of elements in the top part than the bottom part of the stimulus). Eight adult observers were trained for 2 weeks (16 hr) to individualize 30 inverted face identities presented under different depth-rotated views. Following training, all participants showed a significant reduction of their inversion effect for novel face identities presented in a challenging four-alternatives delayed matching task. This reduction of the face inversion effect was observed in comparison to the magnitude of the same observers’ effect before training, and to the magnitude of the face inversion effect of a group of untrained participants. These observations indicate that extensive training in adulthood can lead to a significant reduction of the inversion effect that generalizes to novel faces, suggesting a larger degree of flexibility of the adult face processing system than previously thought

French and English Version of the Reality-Known Nonverbal False Belief Task

<div>The material provided here consists of ONE of TWO tasks that need to be jointly administrated (see Figshare collection to download the other complementing task). </div><div><br></div><div>Please note that the “reality-unknown” task has to be presented BEFORE the “reality-known” task in order to provide reliable diagnostic information. The task is presented in the following article:</div><div><br></div><div>Biervoye, A., Meert, G., Apperly, I.A., & Samson, D. (under review). Assessing the integrity of the cognitive processes involved in belief reasoning by means of two nonverbal tasks: rationale, normalization and illustration with brain-damaged patients.</div><div><br></div><div>The video files are the same for the French and English versions of the task only the scoring sheet and powerpoint files differ across the French and English version.</div><div><br></div><div>Please read carefully the README file. </div

What determines adults’ difficulties in mental states inference ?

An accumulating body of evidence shows that adults don’t perform flawlessly on Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, and that the reason for this is linked to an executive component of ToM reasoning, namely the need to inhibit one’s own perspective. But recent neuropsychological studies have shown the influence of another executive component linked to the inhibition of salient distracting information in the environment. It is currently unknown whether adults show differential difficulties for the inference of different types of mental state. Developmental studies show that children find it easier to reason about emotion than desires and easier to reason about desires than beliefs. However, the executive components have usually not been matched across mental states. In this study, we examined adult’s ToM by contrasting the inference of different types of mental states (emotions, desires/intentions and beliefs) and orthogonally manipulating the type of executive demands (self-perspective inhibition and inhibition of salient distracting information in the environment). Results show that participants’ performance was not flawless (8 % errors on average) and that the errors evenly spread across the different mental states. Furthermore, errors were equivalent across types of executive demands (and even marginally higher in the inhibition of salient distracting information condition)

What determines adults’ difficulties in mental states inference ?

An accumulating body of evidence shows that adults don’t perform flawlessly on Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, and that the reason for this is linked to an executive component of ToM reasoning, namely the need to inhibit one’s own perspective. But recent neuropsychological studies have shown the influence of another executive component linked to the inhibition of salient distracting information in the environment. It is currently unknown whether adults show differential difficulties for the inference of different types of mental state. Developmental studies show that children find it easier to reason about emotion than desires and easier to reason about desires than beliefs. However, the executive components have usually not been matched across mental states. In this study, we examined adult’s ToM by contrasting the inference of different types of mental states (emotions, desires/intentions and beliefs) and orthogonally manipulating the type of executive demands (self-perspective inhibition and inhibition of salient distracting information in the environment). Results show that participants’ performance was not flawless (8 % errors on average) and that the errors evenly spread across the different mental states. Furthermore, errors were equivalent across types of executive demands (and even marginally higher in the inhibition of salient distracting information condition). In sum, when controlling for executive demands, adults are as likely to make errors for any type of mental states. Moreover, self-perspective inhibition demands is not the sole source of difficulty when they engage in ToM reasoning