Table 1.

Examples from each task-group in the meta-analysis by Schurz et al. (2014).

Author	Imaging	Experimental task	Control Task
		False belief vs. photo
Saxe and Kanwisher, 2003	fMRI n = 21	Read a short vignette involving a person holding a false belief. Answer a question about her belief. e.g., John told Emily that he had a Porsche. Actually, his car is a Ford. Emily doesn’t know anything about cars so she believed John. When Emily sees John’s car, she thinks it is a …? (Porsche or Ford).	Read a false-photograph vignette. Answer a question concerning the outdated content in the photo. e.g., A photograph was taken of an apple hanging on a tree branch. The film took half an hour to develop. In the meantime, a strong wind blew the apple to the ground. The developed photograph shows the apple on the …? (tree or ground).
		Trait judgments
Mitchell et al., 2002	fMRI n = 34	Read an adjective. Indicate whether it can be true for a hypothetical person. e.g., “nervous” … can it be true for “David?”?	Read an adjective. Indicate whether it can be true for an object. e.g., “sundried” … can it be true for “grape”?
		Strategic games
Kircher et al., 2009	fMRI n = 14	Play the prisoner’s dilemma game (iterated version). You play with a human player for game points. Both players choose a cooperative or defective strategy on each trial. If both players choose defective, they gain almost no game points at all. If both choose cooperative, both gain some game points. If players choose differently, the defective player gains more points.	Play the prisoner’s dilemma game (iterated version). You play with a computer.
		Social animations
Castelli et al., 2000	PET n = 6	Watch a video animation of two interacting triangles (e.g., mother and child are playing). Explain verbally what was happening (after fMRI).	Watch video animation of two randomly moving triangles. Explain verbally what was happening (after fMRI).
		Mind in the eyes
Baron-Cohen et al., 1999	fMRI n = 12	View photographs of eyes. Indicate which of two words (e.g., concerned vs. unconcerned) describes the mental state of that person.	View photographs of eyes. Indicate if the person is male or female.
		Rational actions
Brunet et al., 2000	fMRI n = 8	View a cartoon story and predict what will happen based on intentions of a character (no false belief). Choose a logical story ending from several options shown in pictures. e.g., A prisoner is in his cell. First, he breaks the bars of his prison window. Then he walks to his bed. Participants must indicate what will happen next … the prisoner ties a rope from the sheets on his bed/the prisoner shouts out loud.	View a cartoon story and predict what will happen based on physical causality. Choose a logical story ending from several options shown in pictures. e.g., A person is standing in front of a slide. A large ball is coming down this slide, heading toward the person standing there. Participants must indicate what will happen next … the ball is knocking over the person/the ball is resting on the ground and the person is standing next to it.