Mentalization is the ability to perceive other people's mental states. This research aimed to deepen our understanding of the underlying mechanisms while also exploring the timeline of the mentalization process. Two studies were conducted in which participants' electrophysiological activity was measured while elaborating Black and White (Study 1), or Italian (ingroup) and Romanian (outgroup), human and doll-like faces (Study 2). Moreover, in Study 2 the presented faces differed in their Facial Width-to-Height Ratio. Subsequently, an Implicit Mind Attribution Test (IMAT) measured the strength of the association of the same ingroup and outgroup human stimuli with mind and body-related words. Two different phases in the time course of the mentalization process emerged. An early ERP component (N170) indicated a first difference between doll-like, mindless and human, mindful targets, while a later ERP component (P300) represented the second stage of mentalization. In this stage, outgroup doll-like faces were elaborated more similarly to the outgroup human faces compared to the same stimuli of the ingroup. Moreover, only a positive correlation between the P300 and the IMAT emerged indicating that the differences in this later ERP component were related with an implicit behavioral measure of mind attribution. These results stipulate the timeline of the mentalization process that is defined by an initial moment of mind detection, in which mindful and mindless stimuli are differentiated for the first time, and a second phase of mind attribution, where the interplay of perceptual and contextual information determine the extraction of a mind from a face.

心理化是感知他人心理状态的能力。这项研究旨在加深我们对潜在机制的理解，同时探索心理化过程的时间表。进行了两项研究，其中测量了参与者的电生理活动，同时详细说明了黑白（研究 1）、意大利语（内群体）和罗马尼亚语（外群体）、人类和娃娃脸（研究 2）。此外，在研究 2 中，所呈现的面部在面部宽高比方面有所不同。随后，内隐心理归因测试 (IMAT) 测量了相同的内群体和外群体人类刺激与心理和身体相关词的关联强度。在心智化过程的时间过程中出现了两个不同的阶段。早期的 ERP 组件 (N170) 表明玩偶般的、无意识的和人类的、有意识的目标之间的第一个差异，而后期的 ERP 组件 (P300) 代表了心理化的第二阶段。在这个阶段，与内群体的相同刺激相比，外群体的娃娃脸更类似于外群体的人脸。此外，只有 P300 和 IMAT 之间出现正相关，表明此后期 ERP 组件的差异与心理归因的内隐行为测量有关。这些结果规定了心智化过程的时间线，由心智检测的初始时刻定义，其中第一次区分有意识和无意识的刺激，以及第二阶段的思维归因，