Individual Differences in the Spontaneous Recruitment of Brain Regions Supporting Mental State Understanding When Viewing Natural Social Scenes

摘要: People are able to rapidly infer complex personality traits and mental states even from the most minimal person information. Research has shown that when observers view a natural scene containing people, they spend disproportionate amount of their time looking at social features (e.g., faces, bodies). Does this preference for merely reflect biological salience these or spontaneously attempting make sense dynamics? Using functional neuroimaging, we investigated neural responses nonsocial visual scenes in large sample participants (n = 48) who varied on an individual difference measure assessing empathy mentalizing (i.e., empathizing). Compared with other categories, viewing activated regions associated cognition dorsomedial prefrontal cortex temporal poles). Moreover, activity during was strongly correlated differences empathizing. These findings offer evidence engage material but degree which people do so is mediated by trait