Two brain systems for thinking about others’ thoughts

The brain seems to have two different systems enabling us to put ourselves in someone else's shoes, which develop at different ages, finds a new study involving UCL. The two systems mature at different times such that only four-year-olds can understand what another person is thinking, and not, as some have assumed, one-year-olds, according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) . " In the first three years of life, children don't seem to fully understand yet what others think. But there already seems to be a mechanism for a basic form of perspective taking, by which very young children simply adopt the other's view," said the study's senior author, Dr Nikolaus Steinbeis (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences). Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS), UCL, and the Social Neuroscience Lab Berlin were seeking to resolve a debate around when children develop Theory of Mind - the ability to understand what another person thinks and how they will behave. They found that only four-year-olds seem able to understand what others think, likely b ecause of the maturation of a specific brain network. Y ounger children are already capable of predicting others' behaviour based on what they think, but the study shows that this prediction of behaviour relies on a different brain network, which matures earlier.