An fMRI study of joint attention experience 联合注意经验的功能磁共振成像研究.pdfVIP

/locate/ynimg NeuroImage 25 (2005) 133– 140 An fMRI study of joint attention experience Justin H.G. Williams,a,b,* Gordon D. Waiter,c Oliver Perra,a David I. Perrett,b and Andrew Whitenb aDepartment of Child Health, University of Aberdeen, Medical School, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK b Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, UK cDepartment of Radiology, University of Aberdeen, Lilian Sutton Building, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK Received 1 July 2004; revised 13 October 2004; accepted 28 October 2004 Available online 21 January 2005 Although much is now known about eye movement detection, little is 1975), and by the age of 18 months they will reliably follow the known about the higher cognitive processes involved in joint attention. gaze of others (Butterworth and Jarrett, 1991). It may therefore be We developed video stimuli which when watched, engender an an important developmental precursor to other social and cognitive experience of joint attention in the observer. This allowed us to abilities. compare an experience of joint attention to nonjoint attention within an In particular, joint attention processes may constitute cognitive fMRI scanning environment. Joint attention was associated with precursors to higher level mental state attribution such as that activity in the ventromedial frontal cortex, the left superior frontal