False belief reasoning in the brain: An ERP study

Understanding others mind and interpersonal interaction are the cognitive basis of successful social interactions. People’s mental states and behaviors rely on their holding beliefs for self and others. To investigate the neural substrates of false belief reasoning, the 32 channels event-related potentials (ERP) of 14 normal adults were measured while they understood false-belief and true belief used deceptive appearance task. After onset of the false-belief or true-belief questions, N100, P200 and late negative component (LNC) were elicited at centro-frontal sites. Compared with true belief, false belief reasoning elicited significant declined LNC in the time window from 400 to 800 ms. The source analysis of difference wave (False minus True) showed a dipole located in the middle cingulated cortex. These findings show that false belief reasoning probably included inhibitive process. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30700238), the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. CBA060059), the Taishan Scholars Construction Project and the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning