Sophisticated perspective-takers are distinctive: Neural idiosyncrasy of functional connectivity in the mentalizing network

Naive perspective-takers often perceive the social world in a simplistic and uniform way, whereas sophisticated ones recognize the diversity and complexity of others’ minds. This commonly accepted distinction points to a possibility of greater inter-individual variability in mentalizing for sophisticated than naive perspective-takers, a difference previously overlooked in research. In the current study, participants were asked to watch a mentalizing-related movie and their neural responses, interpretations of the characters’ mental states, and eye-gaze trajectories were recorded. The results provide robust and converging evidence that the neural connectomic features within the mentalizing network, eye-gaze trajectories, and interpretations of others’ mental states exhibit greater inter-individual variability among sophisticated perspective-takers compared to naive ones, supporting that sophisticated perspective-takers are more distinctive while naive ones are more similar. These findings deepen our understanding of mentalizing by highlighting the idiosyncrasy and homogeneity of neural collaboration and behavioral manifestations across varying levels of perspective-taking sophistication. [Display omitted] •Sophisticated perspective-takers are distinctive and naive ones are similar (AnnaK effect)•The AnnaK effects were shown on the connectomic features of the mentalizing network•The eye-gaze trajectories and interpretations of others’ mind also showed AnnaK effect•The findings deepen our understanding of mentalizing through inter-individual variability Behavioral neuroscience; Cognitive neuroscience; Neuroscience; Social sciences