It seems we each have a part of our brain dedicated to making judgments about other people's judgments.

    This was the claim made by Rebecca Saxe, a cognitive neuroscientist from MIT and now leader of the Saxelab. She found that the right temporo-parietal junction （RTPJ） was responsible for how we analyse other's thoughts.

    She studied children and presented them with tasks that called on them to imagine how other people were feeling.

    One task involved thinking of a pirate who had put his sandwich on a chest and then left. The wind blew his sandwich on the floor, then a second pirate arrived and placed his sandwich on the chest. Which sandwich would the first pirate take when he returned?

    Older children suggested that the first pirate may have thought the sandwich on the chest was his, while the three-year-olds presumed that he would take the sandwich on the chest because his was dirty and did not consider he may have taken it by accident. The youngest children were not able to make the imaginative leap into someone else's mind.

    The team recorded activity in the RTPJ as these tasks were undertaken and discovered that it increased with the age of the child.

    Saxe went on to suggest that by interfering with this area of the brain, reactions to other people could be modified. You could use "magnetic pulses to change people's judgements of other people's judgments," she said.

    Just think what would happen if this technology got into the hands of military. Well, admitted Saxe, the Pentagon is already trying to recruit her. "They're calling, but I'm not taking the calls," she said.

    似乎我们每个人在大脑中都有一部分被用来对别人的判断做出判断。

    这是来自麻省理工学院的认知神经科学家丽蓓卡 萨克斯作出的推断，她现在是 Saxelab 实验室的领导人。她发现右脑颞颅结合部（RTPJ）负责我们如何分析别的人的思想。

    她研究孩子们，并且向他们提出任务，要求他们想像其他人如何思考。

    一个任务涉及思考一个海盗，他把他的三明治放在箱子上，然后离开。风把他的三明治刮到了地板上。然后第二个海盗到达，并且把他的三明治里放在箱子上。第一个海盗回来的时候能拿走哪一块三明治？

    年长的孩子们提出第一个海盗可能认为箱子上的这块三明治是他的，而 3 岁的孩子们则推测他可能拿走箱子上的三明治，因为他的三明治脏了而且认为他不可能意外地把它拿走。年幼的孩子们不能作出富于想象力的跳跃进入另外某个人的想法。

    这个研究小组记录了在承担这些任务时 RTPJ 的活动，并且发现它随儿童的年龄增加。

    萨克斯继续提出，通过干扰大脑的这个部分可以修改对其他人的反应。你可以使用"磁脉冲来改变人们对他人判断的判断，"她说。

    试想如果这个技术进到军方手里将会发生什么。哦，萨克斯承认，五角大楼已经在试图招募她。"他们打了电话，但是我没有接这些电话，"她说。