ELTE Cognitive Seminar: Dana Samson - Unpacking the cognitive and neural processes underlying Theory of Mind

Place: ELTE-PPK, Institute of Psychology, Izabella utca 46, room 403
Time: April 3rd, 2015 (Friday), 10:30

When trying to make sense of other people's behaviour we usually invoke their mental states, such as their intentions, beliefs or emotions; an ability usually referred to by the umbrella term "Theory of Mind". In my talk, I will show the important role that neuropsychology plays in unravelling the cognitive and neural basis of Theory of Mind. I will illustrate this by showing how cases of adults with acquired brain lesions can help us tease apart the different mechanisms that underlie mind reading abilities and can help us understand the nature of these mechanisms. In the first part of the talk, I will report cases of patients who suffer a selective deficit in self-perspective inhibition and show that their deficit cannot be explained by general cognitive control difficulties. In the second part of the talk, I will report cases of patients who suffer a selective deficit in tracking spontaneously other people's beliefs and will discuss these findings in relation to the current debate about the automaticity of belief processing.