We often interact with multiple people at a time and consider their various points of view to facilitate smooth social interaction. Yet, how our brains track multiple mental states at once, and whether skill in this domain links to social integration, remains underspecified. To fill this gap, we developed a novel social working memory paradigm in which participants manage two- or four-people's mental states in working memory, as well as control trials in which they alphabetize two- or four-people's names in working memory. In Study 1, we found that the dorsomedial subsystem of the default network shows relative increases in activity with more mental states managed in working memory. In contrast, this subsystem shows relative decreases in activity with more non-mental state information (the number of names alphabetized) managed in working memory. In Study 2, only individual differences in managing mental states in working memory, specifically on trials that posed the greatest mental state load to working memory, correlated with social integration. Collectively, these findings add further support to the hypothesis that social working memory relies on partially distinct brain systems and may be a key ingredient to success in a social world.

中文翻译：

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思维理论：管理工作记忆中的心理状态推断与默认网络和社会整合的背子系统有关。

我们经常一次与多个人互动，并考虑他们的各种观点以促进顺畅的社交互动。但是，我们的大脑如何一次跟踪多种精神状态，以及该领域的技能是否与社会融合联系在一起，仍未明确。为了填补这一空白，我们开发了一种新颖的社交工作记忆范式，在该范式中，参与者管理工作记忆中的两人或四人精神状态，并进行对照试验，在工作记忆中将两人或四人的名字按字母顺序排列。在研究1中，我们发现默认网络的背部子系统显示出活动的相对增加，并且在工作记忆中管理着更多的精神状态。相反，该子系统显示活动的相对减少，并且在工作内存中管理的非精神状态信息（按字母顺序排列的姓名数量）更多。在研究2中，只有在工作记忆中管理精神状态的个体差异，特别是在对工作记忆造成最大精神状态负荷的试验上，与社会融合相关。总的来说，这些发现进一步支持了以下假设：社会工作记忆依赖于部分不同的大脑系统，并且可能是在社交世界中取得成功的关键因素。