Gaze and Arrows: does the Gaze Following Patch in the posterior temporal cortex differentiate social and symbolic spatial cues?

Abstract

The Gaze Following Patch (GFP) is located in the posterior temporal cortex and has been described as a cortical module dedicated to processing other peoples gaze direction in a domain-specific manner. Thus, it appears to be the neural correlate of Baron-Cohens Eye-Direction Detector (EDD) which is one of the core modules in his Mindreading System - a neurocognitive model for the Theory of Mind concept. Inspired by Jerry Fodors ideas on the modularity of the mind, Baron-Cohen proposed that, among other things, the individual modules are domain-specific. In the case of the EDD this means that it exclusively processes eye-like stimuli to extract gaze direction and that other stimuli, that may carry directional information as well, are processed elsewhere. If the GFP is indeed EDDs neural correlate it must meet this expectation. To test this, we compared the GFPs BOLD activity during gaze-direction following with the activity during arrow-direction following. Contrary to the expectation based on the assumption of domain specificity we did not find a differentiation between gaze and arrow-direction following. In fact, we were not able to reproduce the GFP as presented in previous studies. A possible explanation is that in the present study - unlike previous work -, the gaze stimuli did not contain an obvious change of direction that represented a visual motion. Hence, the critical stimulus component responsible for the identification of the GFP in previous experiments might have been visual motion.