TABLE 3 - uploaded by Ottavia Dipasquale
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
A topic of common interest to psychologists and philosophers is the spontaneous flow of thoughts when the individual is awake but not involved in cognitive demands. This argument, classically referred to as the “stream of consciousness” of James, is now known in the psychological literature as “Mind-Wandering.” Although of great interest, this cons...
Similar publications
Quite a few studies have been performed based on movie-watching functional connectivity (FC). As compared to its resting-state counterpart, however, there is still much to know about its abilities in individual identifications and individualized predictions. To pave the way for appropriate usage of movie-watching FC, we systemically evaluated the m...
Only a few studies have evaluated the brain functional changes associated with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) in multiple sclerosis (MS), though none used a composite measure of clinical and MRI outcomes to evaluate DMT-related brain functional connectivity (FC) measures predictive of short-term outcome. Therefore, we investigated the following...
Spatial smoothing is a widely used preprocessing step in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data analysis. In this work, we report on the spatial smoothing effect on task-evoked fMRI brain functional mapping and functional connectivity. Initially, we decomposed the task fMRI data into a collection of components or networks by independent...
The Identifiability Framework (I f) has been shown to improve differential identifiability (reliability across-sessions and -sites, and differentiability across-subjects) of functional connectomes for a variety of fMRI tasks. But having a robust single session/subject functional connectome is just the starting point to subsequently assess network p...
Recognizing who is speaking is a cognitive ability characterized by considerable individual differences, which could relate to the inter-individual variability observed in voice-elicited BOLD activity. Since voice perception is sustained by a complex brain network involving temporal voice areas (TVAs) and, even if less consistently, extra-temporal...
Citations
... The scores of these domains correlated with well-established measures of general mental well-being (Diaz et al. 2013;Palagini et al. 2016;Simpraga et al. 2021). Importantly, ARSQ was successfully implemented in brain imaging studies, using different brain imaging modalities and applying different signal analysis methods resulting in observations of various associations with the ARSQ domains (Diaz et al. 2013;Marchetti et al. 2015;Pipinis et al. 2017;Portnova et al. 2019;Stoffers et al. 2015;Tarailis et al. 2021Tarailis et al. , 2022Tomescu et al. 2022;Zanesco et al. 2021). ...
... Yet no study so far attempted to evaluate functional EEG connectivity in relation to ARSQ. fMRI-based functional connectivity studies demonstrated that selfreports are reliably related to the functional connectivity in brain networks (Marchetti et al. 2015;Stoffers et al. 2015), thus EEG connectivity should potentially be a sensitive measure reflecting subjective experience patterns as well. Moreover, based on the overall large amount of information about frequency-dependent functional significance of oscillatory brain activity, estimation of connectivity in the frequency domain should better elucidate which types of activity are implicated in different experiences. ...
The resting-state paradigm is frequently applied to study spontaneous activity of the brain in normal and clinical conditions. To assess the relationship between brain activity and subjective experiences, various questionnaires are used. Previous studies using Amsterdam Resting State Questionnaire were focusing on fMRI functional connectivity or EEG microstates and spectral aspect. Here, we utilized Global Field Synchronization as the parameter to estimate global functional connectivity. By re-analyzing the resting-state data from 226 young healthy participants we showed a strong evidence of relationship between ARSQ domain of Comfort and GFS values in the alpha range (r = 0.210, BF10 = 12.338) and substantial evidence for positive relationship between ARSQ domain of Comfort and GFS in the beta frequency range (r = 196, BF10 = 6.307). Our study indicates the relevance of assessments of spontaneous thought occurring during the resting-state for the understanding of the individual intrinsic electrical brain activity.
... ;https://doi.org/10.1101https://doi.org/10. /2023 participants engage in mind wandering and spontaneous, internally directed cognitive processes (Diaz et al. 2013;Marchetti et al. 2015), whereas the task may produce a more constrained state (Cole et al. 2014). While initial comparisons revealed diagnostic differences in mean correlational distance between SSD and TDC during the EA task, hierarchical regression analysis revealed that variability in EA task background connectivity was related to mentalizing score and empathy, but not diagnostic group, while resting state variability was predominantly related to diagnostic differences. ...
Background
Individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) often demonstrate cognitive impairments, associated with poor functional outcomes. While neurobiological heterogeneity has posed challenges when examining social cognition in SSD, it provides a unique opportunity to explore brain-behavior relationships. We examined the relationship between behavioral data and individual variability of functional connectivity at rest and during an emotional-processing task.
Methods
Neuroimaging and behavioral data were analyzed for 193 individuals with SSD and 155 controls (total n = 348). Individual variability was quantified through mean correlational distance (MCD) of functional connectivity between participants; MCD was defined as a global ‘variability score’. Hierarchical regressions were performed on variability scores derived from resting state and Empathic Accuracy (EA) task functional connectivity data to determine potential predictors (e.g., age, sex, neurocognitive and social cognitive scores) of individual variability.
Results
SSD showed greater MCD during rest (p = 0.00013) and task (p = 0.022). In the hierarchical regression, diagnosis remained significant when social cognition was included during rest (p = 0.008), but not during task (p = 0.50); social cognition was significant during both rest and task (both p = 0.01).
Conclusions
Diagnostic differences were more prevalent during unconstrained resting scans, whereas the task pushed participants into a more common pattern which better emphasized transdiagnostic differences in cognitive abilities. Focusing on variability may provide new opportunities for interventions targeting specific cognitive impairments to improve functional outcomes.
... Third, can BoCSoR be employed to extract knowledge from the trained AI model? The prominent connections highlighted by our method seem coherent with the most salient functional connections reported in the literature for the HCP emotional [40], [62], [63] and social tasks [40], [64], [65]. Indeed, the emotional task, built over a sequence of contrasts between human faces expressing strong emotion (fear, panic, anger, etc.) and simple emotionless object shapes, is known to recruit both cortical visual areas and face emotion recognition regions, in accordance with the connections we found with BoCSoR. ...
Background:
Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is a technology that can enhance trust in mental state classifications by providing explanations for the reasoning behind artificial intelligence (AI) models outputs, especially for high-dimensional and highly-correlated brain signals. Feature importance and counterfactual explanations are two common approaches to generate these explanations, but both have drawbacks. While feature importance methods, such as shapley additive explanations (SHAP), can be computationally expensive and sensitive to feature correlation, counterfactual explanations only explain a single outcome instead of the entire model.
Methods:
To overcome these limitations, we propose a new procedure for computing global feature importance that involves aggregating local counterfactual explanations. This approach is specifically tailored to fMRI signals and is based on the hypothesis that instances close to the decision boundary and their counterfactuals mainly differ in the features identified as most important for the downstream classification task. We refer to this proposed feature importance measure as Boundary Crossing Solo Ratio (BoCSoR), since it quantifies the frequency with which a change in each feature in isolation leads to a change in classification outcome, i.e., the crossing of the model's decision boundary.
Results and conclusions:
Experimental results on synthetic data and real publicly available fMRI data from the Human Connect project show that the proposed BoCSoR measure is more robust to feature correlation and less computationally expensive than state-of-the-art methods. Additionally, it is equally effective in providing an explanation for the behavior of any AI model for brain signals. These properties are crucial for medical decision support systems, where many different features are often extracted from the same physiological measures and a gold standard is absent. Consequently, computing feature importance may become computationally expensive, and there may be a high probability of mutual correlation among features, leading to unreliable results from state-of-the-art XAI methods.
... The Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire (ARSQ) [16,17] assesses ten mind-wandering domains that participants might experience during the resting session: Discontinuity of Mind (DoM), referring to the dynamics of ongoing thoughts; Theory of Mind (ToM), referring to other-people-related 2 of 12 thoughts; Self, referring to self-related thoughts; Planning, referring to future-directed thoughts; Sleepiness, referring to the level of drowsiness; Comfort, referring to the level of relaxation during the session; Somatic Awareness (SA), referring to the interoceptive awareness of one's own body; Health Concern (HC), referring to general well-being; Visual Thought (Vis), referring to visual imagery during mind wandering; and Verbal Thought (VT), referring to spontaneous thoughts formulated in words. Several EEG, fMRI, and behavioral studies have reported the relationship between ARSQ domains and physiological or psychological variables in healthy [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] and clinical cohorts [27,28], confirming the importance of combined measures of subjective experience and biologically defined signals. ...
... The ARSQ appeared to be a useful tool to relate biological signals collected over the resting-state session with participants' subjective experiences and emotions. Several studies using different brain-imaging modalities and applying different analysis methods have reported associations with the ARSQ domains (DoM [24,26], ToM [20], Self [25,26], Planning [18,22], Sleepiness [16,24], Comfort [18,24,25], Somatic Awareness [18,21,25,26], Visual Thought [24], and Verbal Thought [26]). However, none of the studies has implemented an f-PCA approach for EEG quantification. ...
The resting-state paradigm is frequently applied to study spontaneous activity of the brain in normal and clinical conditions. However, the relationship between the ongoing experience of mind wandering and the individual biological signal is still unclear. We aim to estimate associations between subjective experiences measured with the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire and data-driven components of an electroencephalogram extracted by frequency principal component analysis (f-PCA). Five minutes of resting multichannel EEG was recorded in 226 participants and six EEG data-driven components were extracted—three components in the alpha range (peaking at 9, 10.5, and 11.5 Hz) and one each in the delta (peaking at 0.5 Hz), theta (peaking at 5.5 Hz) and beta (peaking at 17 Hz) ranges. Bayesian Pearson’s correlation revealed a positive association between the individual loadings of the theta component and ratings for Sleepiness (r = 0.200, BF10 = 7.676), while the individual loadings on one of the alpha components correlated positively with scores for Comfort (r = 0.198, BF10 = 7.115). Our study indicates the relevance of assessments of spontaneous thought occurring during the resting-state for the understanding of the individual intrinsic electrical brain activity.
... Finally, Visual and Verbal Thoughts refer to the preferred modality used during the mind-wandering state. We administered the Italian version of the questionnaire (Marchetti et al., 2015). Good psychometric proprieties were demonstrated for the original and the Italian version of the scale. ...
The natural tendency of the mind to wander (i.e., mind wandering), is often connected to negative thoughts and emotional states. On the other hand, mindfulness (i.e., the ability to focus one’s attention on the present moment in a non-judgmental way) has acquired a growing interest in recent years given its beneficial role in improving awareness and self-regulation. Starting from previous evidence, this study aims to clarify the psychological, physiological, and affective impact of a mindfulness exercise on mind wandering. Twenty-eight non-expert female meditators were recruited for this study. Heart rate variability (HRV), state mindfulness, mind wandering manifestations, and affective states, were recorded during a baseline condition, a mindfulness breathing observation exercise, and a final rest condition. Subjects reported significant decreases in mind wandering comparing baseline and mindfulness. Changes in mind wandering were mirrored by changes in HRV, with higher HRV during the breathing observation exercise. Significant associations were found between scores of mindfulness, mind wandering, and affective states measured during the task. Our findings confirmed the role of mindfulness in reducing mind wandering and increasing HRV. Results are discussed considering mindfulness associations with self-regulation and well-being.
... The ARSQ covers ten resting-state cognition domains: Discontinuity of Mind (DoM), Theory of Mind (ToM), Self, Planning, Sleepiness, Comfort, Somatic Awareness (SA), Health Concerns (HC), Visual Thought (Vis) and Verbal Thought (VT) [12,13]. This tool has been successfully applied in neuroimaging studies, including those using EEG [14][15][16][17][18][19]. ...
... These results are partially in line with those reported by Koenig et al. [44]. The authors reported shorter duration of microstate D during early (12)(13)(14)(15)(16) year) and late adolescence (16-21 years) and a partial reverse of this tendency in adulthood (above 21 years). Also, microstate A was shorter and had lower occurrence rate in adulthood compared to late adolescence. ...
Rationale:
The resting-state paradigm is frequently applied in electroencephalography (EEG) research; however, it is associated with the inability to control participants' thoughts. To quantify subjects' subjective experiences at rest, the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire (ARSQ) was introduced covering ten dimensions of mind wandering. We aimed to estimate associations between subjective experiences and resting-state microstates of EEG.
Methods:
5 min resting-state EEG data of 197 subjects was used to evaluate temporal properties of seven microstate classes. Bayesian correlation approach was implemented to assess associations between ARSQ domains assessed after resting and parameters of microstates.
Results:
Several associations between Comfort, Self and Somatic Awareness domains and temporal properties of neuroelectric microstates were revealed. The positive correlation between Comfort and duration of microstates E showed the strongest evidence (BF10 > 10); remaining correlations showed substantial evidence (10 > BF10 > 3).
Conclusion:
Our study indicates the relevance of assessments of spontaneous thought occurring during the resting-state for the understanding of the intrinsic brain activity reflected in microstates.
... However, some studies showed that estimates of correlation strengths stabilize during 5-6 min, and such duration can be sufficient for FC analysis (Dijk et al., 2010). Moreover, similar studies of the Theory of Mind network utilized the same scan duration (Marchetti et al., 2015;Stoffers et al., 2015;Ling et al., 2019), which can be useful in the future for consistency between studies. ...
The organization of socio-cognitive processes is a multifaceted problem for which many sophisticated concepts have been proposed. One of these concepts is social intelligence (SI), i.e., the set of abilities that allow successful interaction with other people. The theory of mind (ToM) human brain network is a good candidate for the neural substrate underlying SI since it is involved in inferring the mental states of others and ourselves and predicting or explaining others’ actions. However, the relationship of ToM to SI remains poorly explored. Our recent research revealed an association between the gray matter volume of the caudate nucleus and the degree of SI as measured by the Guilford-Sullivan test. It led us to question whether this structural peculiarity is reflected in changes to the integration of the caudate with other areas of the brain associated with socio-cognitive processes, including the ToM system. We conducted seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analysis of resting-state fMRI data for 42 subjects with the caudate as a region of interest. We found that the scores of the Guilford-Sullivan test were positively correlated with the FC between seeds in the right caudate head and two clusters located within the right superior temporal gyrus and bilateral precuneus. Both regions are known to be nodes of the ToM network. Thus, the current study demonstrates that the SI level is associated with the degree of functional integration between the ToM network and the caudate nuclei.
... In people without insomnia, not only elevated scores on Sleepiness but also reduced scores on Planning and Theory of Mind have been shown to predict sleep-onset latency, further supporting the applicability of the ARSQ to capture functionally relevant cognitive states (Diaz et al., 2016). The questionnaire has been validated with data gathered from studies measuring resting-state fMRI (Marchetti et al., 2015;Stoffers et al., 2015) and EEG (Diaz et al., 2013(Diaz et al., , 2016, showing that individual variation in multiple dimensions of the ARSQ are related to individual variation in brain activity during rest. ...
Lay abstract:
Everyone knows the feeling of letting one's mind wander freely in a quiet moment. The thoughts and feelings experienced in those moments have been shown to influence our well-being-and vice versa. In this study, we looked at which thoughts and feelings are being experienced by adults with autism spectrum disorder and compared them to adults without autism spectrum disorder. In total, 88 adults with autism spectrum disorder and 90 adults without autism spectrum disorder were asked to rest for 5 min with their eyes closed and let their mind wander. Directly after, they filled in the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire, which probes what participants were feeling and thinking during the period of rest. We found that adults with autism spectrum disorder tend to think less about others, felt less comfortable, and had more disrupted thoughts during the rest compared to adults without autism spectrum disorder. Interestingly, autism spectrum disorder participants reporting lower levels of comfort during the rest also reported more autism spectrum disorder symptoms, specifically in social behaviors and skills, attention switching, and imagination. We propose to use the eyes-closed rest condition in combination with the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire more widely to shed light on aberrant thoughts and feelings in brain disorders and to study the effect of therapeutic interventions.
... La corteza prefrontal muestra una relación con la ToM en lo referente al control voluntario del comportamiento, la conciencia y las funciones ejecutivas. Esta área presenta implicación durante el proceso de pensar como los demás, esto mediante el uso de la activación del lóbulo frontal, que le permite al sujeto separar la propia perspectiva de la de los demás (Marchetti et al., 2015). ...
El propósito del presente artículo es presentar una revisión bibliométrica sobre las investigaciones que trabajan el concepto de Teoría de la Mente (ToM) y de Personalidad. Se seleccionaron 30 estudios de las bases de datos Scopus, Science Direct, EBSCO, PubMed, Scielo y Springer, de los cuales se obtuvieron 75 artículos científicos experimentales publicados entre los años 2012 y 2016. Se halló una relación de la ToM con trastornos de la personalidad, tales como el trastorno límite, narcisista y antisocial. También se encontró relación con rasgos específicos, como baja empatía, el tipo de apego y los altos niveles de insensibilidad emocional. Se concluye que, aunque se ha avanzado en el conocimiento de la relación entre la ToM y la personalidad, las investigaciones no son lo suficientemente extensas para aclarar cómo opera esta interacción con la totalidad de las dimensiones y los rasgos de personalidad en sujetos con y sin psicopatología.
... mental state talk, MST) as a measure itself of ToM (Baglio & Marchetti, 2016;Bretherton & Beegley, 1982;Grazzani & Ornaghi, 2012;Hughes, Ensor, & Marks, 2011;Pinto, Tarchi, Accorti Gamannossi, & Bigozzi, 2016). Narratives represent an ideal context to study ToM as measured by MST, as children need an advanced ToM to implement MST in their narratives and centre them around a protagonist's intentions and subsequent actions (Marchetti et al., 2015;Pelletier & Beatty, 2015;Pinto, Tarchi, Accorti Gamannossi, et al., 2016). Although narratives are often used as a context measure for children's MST, the impact of children's narrative competence and quality of their narratives on ToM is under investigated. ...
... specialised grammar). This conventionalisation and decontextualising process might influence the way children use MST to describe the protagonist's intentions and subsequent actions (Marchetti et al., 2015;Pelletier & Beatty, 2015). ...
This study investigates the relationships between narrative competence and mental state talk at different age levels. Specifically, we explored whether a higher level of structure in narratives is associated with children's mental state talk, and whether this effect is moderated by age (kindergarten, lower and upper primary school). The participants in the study were 172 Italian children. The children were asked to tell a story and their productions were coded for narrative structural level and mental state talk. Data showed higher levels of narrative structure were associated with a higher frequency of emotional, cognitive, moral, and socio‐relational terms. Results of the present study contributed to improve our understanding about how mental state talk and narrative competence are associated in different ways at different ages. This result suggests that children may develop in the ability to coordinate mental state talk and narrative structure as an effect of both, age and schooling.
Statement of contribution
What is already known on this subject?
Theory of mind and language are interconnected.
Theory of mind can be assessed through mental state talk.
Mental state talk is elicited through narrative tasks.
What does this study add?
Narrative competence is associated with mental state talk.
The first years of primary school seem to represent an important transition in children's development in narrative competence and MST.
Children may develop in the ability to coordinate mental state talk and narrative structure as an effect of both, age and schooling.
