Recent work in psychology and neuroscience has revealed differences in impression updating across social distance and group membership. Observers tend to maintain prior impressions of close (vs. distant) and ingroup (vs. outgroup) others in light of new information, and this belief maintenance is at times accompanied by increased activity in Theory of Mind regions. It remains an open question whether differences in the strength of prior beliefs, in a context absent social motivation, contribute to neural differences during belief updating. We devised a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to isolate the impact of experimentally induced prior beliefs on mentalizing activity. Participants learned about targets who performed 2 or 4 same-valenced behaviors (leading to the formation of weak or strong priors), before performing 2 counter-valenced behaviors. We found a greater change in activity in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and right temporo-parietal junction following the violation of strong versus weak priors, and a greater change in activity in DMPFC and left temporo-parietal junction following the violation of positive versus negative priors. These results indicate that differences in neural responses to unexpected behaviors from close versus distant others, and ingroup versus outgroup members, may be driven in part by differences in the strength of prior beliefs.

中文翻译：

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违反强弱先验信念后的心理理论。


心理学和神经科学领域的最新研究揭示了社交距离和群体成员身份之间印象更新的差异。观察者倾向于根据新信息维持对亲密（相对于疏远）和内群体（相对于外群体）他人的先前印象，并且这种信念维持有时伴随着心理理论区域的活动增加。在缺乏社会动机的情况下，先前信念的强度差异是否会导致信念更新过程中的神经差异，这仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。我们设计了一项功能性磁共振成像研究，以隔离实验诱导的先验信念对心智化活动的影响。参与者在执行 2 个反价行为之前了解了执行 2 或 4 个同价行为（导致形成弱或强先验）的目标。我们发现，在强先验与弱先验的违反之后，背内侧前额叶皮层（DMPFC）和右颞顶叶交界区的活动发生了更大的变化，在正先验与负先验的违反之后，DMPFC 和左颞顶叶交界区的活动也发生了更大的变化。先验。这些结果表明，对亲密与疏远他人、内群体与外群体成员的意外行为的神经反应差异可能部分是由先前信念强度的差异造成的。