Despite the ubiquity of knowledge attribution in human social cognition, its associated neural and cognitive mechanisms are poorly documented. A wealth of converging evidence in cognitive neuroscience has identified independent perspective-taking and inhibitory processes for belief attribution, but the extent to which these processes are shared by knowledge attribution isn't presently understood. Here, we present the findings of an EEG study designed to directly address this shortcoming. These findings suggest that belief attribution is not a component process in knowledge attribution, contra a standard attitude taken by philosophers. Instead, observed differences in P3b amplitude indicate that knowledge attribution doesn't recruit the strong self-perspective inhibition characteristic of belief attribution. However, both belief and knowledge attribution were observed to display a late slow wave widely associated with mental state attribution, indicating that knowledge attribution also shares in more general processing of others' mental states. These results provide a new perspective both on how we think about knowledge attribution, as well as Theory of Mind processes generally.

中文翻译：

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知识归因的神经和认知机制：脑电图研究。

尽管知识归因在人类社会认知中无处不在，但其相关的神经和认知机制却鲜有记载。认知神经科学中的大量汇聚证据已经确定了信念归因的独立观点采择和抑制过程，但目前尚不清楚知识归因共享这些过程的程度。在这里，我们介绍了旨在直接解决这一缺点的 EEG 研究的结果。这些发现表明，信念归因不是知识归因的一个组成部分，这与哲学家采取的标准态度相反。相反，观察到的 P3b 幅度差异表明知识归因不会招募信念归因的强烈自我视角抑制特征。然而，观察到信念和知识归因都显示出与心理状态归因广泛相关的晚期慢波，表明知识归因也参与了对他人心理状态的更一般处理。这些结果为我们如何看待知识归因以及心理理论过程提供了一个新的视角。