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Cognitive modes involved during theory of mind: A Human Connectome Project fMRI study

Poster Session F - Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Ava Momeni^1,2 (), Madeleine Evora^1,2, Karanvir Gill¹, Todd S. Woodward^1,2; ¹University of British Columbia, Canada, ²BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Institute, Canada

Theory of mind (ToM), or mentalization, is a core aspect of social cognition that enables individuals to infer others’ mental states. Brain activity underlying ToM has been extensively studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), with a primary focus on the Default Mode (DM). In this study, we investigated the interplay of multiple cognitive modes elicited during ToM, extending beyond but still including the DM. Cognitive modes refer to task-general cognitive processes that evoke distinct fMRI-derived spatiotemporal patterns. We applied constrained principal component analysis for fMRI to a dataset (n=500) from the Human Connectome Project Social Cognition task. In this task, participants evaluated whether the movements of animated shapes depicted social or random interactions, corresponding to the Mentalizing and Random conditions, respectively. Five cognitive modes were derived: (1) DM, (2) Multiple Demand (MD), (3) Language (LAN), (4) Focus on Visual Features (FVF), and (5) Re-Evaluation (RE-EV). All exhibited higher activation in the Mentalizing condition, except for the RE-EV mode. Their functions in the context of ToM were proposed as engaging in mental projection into social narratives (DM), allocating external attention to task-relevant components (MD), processing non-verbal communication (LAN), focusing on visual features of the social stimuli (FVF), and re-evaluating ambiguous patterns of the random stimuli (RE-EV). Our results confirmed the activation of DM during ToM and revealed the contributions of additional cognitive modes. The temporal patterns of these cognitive modes can serve as inputs for machine learning algorithms aimed at subtyping patients with psychiatric conditions to advance toward precision psychiatry.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Other