The timeline of mentalization: Distinguishing a two-phase process from mind detection to mind attribution

Mentalization is the ability to perceive other people's mental states. This research aimed to deepen our understanding of the underlying mechanisms while also exploring the timeline of the mentalization process. Two studies were conducted in which participants' electrophysiological activity was measured while elaborating Black and White (Study 1), or Italian (ingroup) and Romanian (outgroup), human and doll-like faces (Study 2). Moreover, in Study 2 the presented faces differed in their Facial Width-to-Height Ratio. Subsequently, an Implicit Mind Attribution Test (IMAT) measured the strength of the association of the same ingroup and outgroup human stimuli with mind and body-related words. Two different phases in the time course of the mentalization process emerged. An early ERP component (N170) indicated a first difference between doll-like, mindless and human, mindful targets, while a later ERP component (P300) represented the second stage of mentalization. In this stage, outgroup doll-like faces were elaborated more similarly to the outgroup human faces compared to the same stimuli of the ingroup. Moreover, only a positive correlation between the P300 and the IMAT emerged indicating that the differences in this later ERP component were related with an implicit behavioral measure of mind attribution. These results stipulate the timeline of the mentalization process that is defined by an initial moment of mind detection, in which mindful and mindless stimuli are differentiated for the first time, and a second phase of mind attribution, where the interplay of perceptual and contextual information determine the extraction of a mind from a face. •A new paradigm is introduced to study the timeline of mentalization.•Event Related Potentials permitted to distinguish a two-stage process:•Mind detection (N170) marks the first division between mindful vs mindless targets.•Perceptual and contextual cues together determine the mind attribution stage (P300).•Only the latter stage correlates with a behavioral measure of mind attribution.