Effective real-world communication requires the alignment of multiple individuals to a common perspective or mental framework. To study how this alignment occurs at the level of the brain, we measured BOLD response during fMRI while participants ( n = 24) listened to a series of vignettes either in the presence or absence of a valid contextual cue. The valid contextual cue was necessary to understand the information in each vignette. We then examined where and to what extent the shared valid context led to greater intersubject similarity of neural processing. Regions of the default mode network including posterior cingulate cortex and medial pFC became more aligned when participants shared a valid contextual framework, whereas other regions, including primary sensory cortices, responded to the stimuli reliably regardless of contextual factors. Taken in conjunction with previous research, the present results suggest that default mode regions help the brain to organize incoming verbal information in the context of previous knowledge.

People often make shortsighted decisions to receive small benefits in the present rather than large benefits in the future, that is, to favor their current selves over their future selves. In two studies using fMRI, we demonstrated that people make such decisions in part because they fail to engage in the same degree of self-referential processing when thinking about their future selves. When participants predicted how much they would enjoy an event in the future, they showed less activity in brain regions associated with introspective self-reference—such as the ventromedial pFC (vMPFC)—than when they predicted how much they would enjoy events in the present. Moreover, the magnitude of vMPFC reduction predicted the extent to which participants made shortsighted monetary decisions several weeks later. In light of recent findings that the vMPFC contributes to the ability to simulate future events from a first-person perspective, these data suggest that shortsighted decisions result in part from a failure to fully imagine the subjective experience of one's future self.

Recent research has focused on the disparate mechanisms that support the human ability to “mentalize” about the thoughts and feelings of others. One such process may rely on precompiled, semantic beliefs about the characteristics common to members of a social group, that is, on stereotypes ; for example, judging that a woman may be more likely than a man to have certain interests or opinions. In the current study, we identified a pattern of neural activity associated with the use of stereotypes to judge another person's psychological characteristics. During fMRI scanning, participants mentalized about the likely responses of a female and male target to a series of questions, some of which were related to gender stereotypes (e.g., “enjoys shopping for new clothes”). Trials on which participants applied a stereotype were segregated from those on which participants avoided stereotype use. The BOLD response in an extensive region of the right frontal cortex differentiated stereotype-applied from -unapplied trials. Moreover, this neural difference was correlated with a behavioral index of gender associations—the Implicit Association Test—administered after scanning. Results suggest that stereotype application may draw on cognitive processes that more generally subserve semantic knowledge about categories.