Publications (2)9.19 Total impact
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Article: Investigation of mentalizing and visuospatial perspective taking for self and other in Asperger syndrome.
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ABSTRACT: Mentalizing refers to making inferences about other people's mental states, whereas visuospatial perspective taking refers to inferring other people's viewpoints. Both abilities seem vital for social functioning; yet, their exact relationship is unclear. We directly compared mentalizing and visuospatial perspective taking in nineteen adults with Asperger syndrome (AS) and fifteen control participants with the same stimulus material. Stimuli depicted virtual characters surrounded by two different objects. Virtual characters expressed a preference for one of the objects indicated by facial expression, gestures or head/body orientation. Compared to controls, participants with AS showed significantly increased reaction times and decreased accuracy for mentalizing (i.e., when inferring the virtual character's preference from the character's nonverbal bodily cues). By contrast, there were no significant group differences in perspective taking (i.e., by mental own-body transformations). These findings demonstrate, first, specific deficits in AS when mental states have to be inferred from nonverbal social cues. Second, visuospatial perspective taking may not necessarily be related to social impairments occurring in autism spectrum disorders.Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 09/2009; 40(3):290-9. · 3.06 Impact Factor -
Article: Differential involvement of the posterior temporal cortex in mentalizing but not perspective taking.
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ABSTRACT: Understanding and predicting other people's mental states and behavior are important prerequisites for social interactions. The capacity to attribute mental states such as desires, thoughts or intentions to oneself or others is referred to as mentalizing. The right posterior temporal cortex at the temporal-parietal junction has been associated with mentalizing but also with taking someone else's spatial perspective onto the world--possibly an important prerequisite for mentalizing. Here, we directly compared the neural correlates of mentalizing and perspective taking using the same stimulus material. We found significantly increased neural activity in the right posterior segment of the superior temporal sulcus only during mentalizing but not perspective taking. Our data further clarify the role of the posterior temporal cortex in social cognition by showing that it is involved in processing information from socially salient visual cues in situations that require the inference about other people's mental states.Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 10/2008; 3(3):279-89. · 6.13 Impact Factor
