The current study examined how social cognition - specifically, belief-state processing - changes across the lifespan, using a large sample (N = 309) of participants aged 10-86 years. Participants completed an event-related brain potential study in which they listened to stories involving a character who held either a true- or false-belief about the location of an object, and then acted in a manner consistent or inconsistent to this belief-state. Analysis of the N400 revealed that when the character held a true-belief, inconsistent outcomes led to a more negative-going N400 waveform than consistent outcomes. In contrast, when the character held a false-belief, consistent outcomes led to a more negative-going N400 waveform than inconsistent outcomes, indicating that participants interpreted the character's actions according to their own more complete knowledge of reality. Importantly, this egocentric bias was not modulated by age in an early time window (200-400 msec post-stimulus onset), meaning that initial processing is grounded in reality, irrespective of age. However, this egocentric effect was correlated with age in a later time window (400-600 msec post-stimulus onset), as older adults continued to consider the story events according to their own knowledge of reality, but younger participants had now switched to accommodate the character's perspective. In a final 600-1000 msec time window, this age modulation was no longer present. Interestingly, results suggested that this extended egocentric processing in older adults was not the result of domain-general cognitive declines, as no significant relationship was found with executive functioning (inhibitory control and working memory).

中文翻译：

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跨寿命信念归因的神经基础：错误信念推理和N400效应。

当前的研究使用大量样本（N = 309）年龄在10-86岁之间的参与者，研究了社会认知（特别是信念状态处理）在整个生命周期中如何变化。参与者完成了一项与事件相关的大脑潜能研究，在该研究中，他们听涉及一个人物的故事，该人物对对象的位置持有真假信念，然后以与该信念状态一致或不一致的方式行动。对N400的分析表明，当角色保持真实信念时，不一致的结局会导致N400波形比一致的结局更加消极。相反，当角色持有错误信念时，一致的结果会导致N400波形比不一致的结果更趋向负，这表明参与者解释了角色的“ 根据自己的动作对现实有更全面的了解。重要的是，这种自我中心的偏见在早期时间窗口（刺激发生后200-400毫秒）中不受年龄的影响，这意味着不管年龄大小，初始处理实际上都是基于事实的。但是，这种自我中心效应与后来的时间窗口（刺激发生后400-600毫秒）中的年龄相关，因为老年人继续根据自己对现实的了解来考虑故事事件，但是现在年轻的参与者已经转向适应角色的视角。在最后的600-1000毫秒的时间窗口中，不再存在这种年龄调制。有趣的是，结果表明，在老年人中这种以自我为中心的扩展过程不是领域普遍认知下降的结果，