Poster by Gabriel Braun and Prof. Einat Shetreet
At ISCOP 2025
A joint work by Gabriel Braun, Prof. Yaara Yeshurun and Prof. Einat Shetreet:
Shared Disbelief, Shared Belief: Disbelief Context and Actual Belief as Drivers of Interpersonal Neural Synchronization
(Presented at ISCOP 2025)
Abstract:
Despite living in an era where the mere concept of truth is increasingly contested, the cognitive processes underlying the processing of information we believe or disbelieve in remain largely unexplored. In this fMRI study, we examined narrative processing through two factors of belief: Belief context- contextual information that provides initial indications of truthfulness, and actual belief- the truth value ultimately assigned to the narrative. Participants (N=48) listened to two narratives where context either supported or discredited the speaker's account of the events. After each narrative, they were asked to report their actual belief in the narrative. To investigate the effects of (dis)belief on narrative processing, we analyzed neural synchronization using intersubject-correlation analysis and inter-subject representational similarity analysis.
We successfully decoded (dis)belief context by modeling neural synchronization patterns, despite an actual “beliefbias” at the behavioural level. This indicates a unique neural pattern related to each belief context. Notably, a dissociation emerged between belief context and actual belief both in localization and in opposite synchronization patterns: Disbelief context led to higher synchronization compared to belief context, in areas involved in conflict control, while actual belief led to higher synchronization compared to actual disbelief, in areas associated with the mentalizing network.
These results highlight the dissociable aspects of (dis)belief, which, while interconnected, correspond to distinct cognitive processes. Specifically, our findings suggest that disbelief context activates perceptual mechanisms related to conflict monitoring and resolution that underly interpretation of events. In contrast, actual belief promotes a more coherent interpretation, resulting in higher synchrony among participants.
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