Reading other people's mind: insights from neuropsychology.

Full Abstract

When trying to make sense of other people's behaviour we usually invoke their mental states, such as their intentions, beliefs or emotions. This mind reading ability has been traditionally investigated in developmental psychology and comparative psychology but is now receiving increasing attention from the cognitive neurosciences. I will show the important role that neuropsychology plays in unravelling the cognitive and neural basis of our mind reading abilities. I will illustrate this by showing how cases of adults with acquired brain lesions can help us tease apart the different mechanisms that underlie mind reading abilities and can help us understand the nature of these mechanisms, especially their relation to language and executive function.

Author information

Author/s: Samson, Dana (D);

Affiliation: University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, UK. dana.samson(-atsign-)nottingham.ac.uk

Grants: (Agency:Medical Research Council)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Review

Journal: Journal of neuropsychology (J Neuropsychol), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Mar; vol 3 (issue Pt 1) : pp 3-16

Dates: Created 2009/04/02; Completed 2009/04/20;

PMID: 19338713, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 4/20/2009, IMS Date: 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article
(including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.

See a large map of 100+ related articles.