The Neuroscience of Social Interaction: Decoding, Imitating, and Influencing the Actions of Others

363 Pages·2004·3.14 MB·English

by  Chris Frith

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The Neuroscience of Social Interaction
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The Neuroscience of
Social Interaction
Decoding, imitating, and
influencing the actions
of others
Edited by
CHRISTOPHER D. FRITH
Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience,
Institute of Neurology, University College London, London
and
DANIEL M.WOLPERT
Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders,
Institute of Neurology, University College London, London
Originating from a Theme Issue first published by Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B.
1
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3
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Preface
A key question for science to explore in the twenty-first century concerns the
mechanism that allows skilful social interaction. Although enormous
advances in our understanding of the links between the mind, the brain, and
behaviour have been made in the last few decades, these are based on studies
in which people are considered as strictly isolated units. For example, studies
might typically examine the brain activity when volunteers press a button
when they are aware of seeing a visual stimulus. Outside the laboratory, in
contrast, we spend most of our time thinking about and interacting with other
people rather than looking at abstract shapes and pushing buttons. One of the
major functions of our brains must be to facilitate such social interactions. It
is the mental and neural mechanisms that underlie this social interaction
which forms the main theme of this book.
We have concentrated on two-person social interactions in which one
person, either implicitly or explicitly, tries to ‘read’the hidden mental states
of the other; their goals, beliefs or feelings. In this book we have brought
together scientists from many different disciplines, but all concerned with the
same problems. These problems include how goals and intentions can be read
from watching another person’s movements, how movements that we see can
be converted into movements that we make, and how our own behaviour can
be used to influence the behaviour of others. The book reviews the general
principles concerning the cognitive and neural bases of social interactions that
have emerged. Within this framework the authors discuss many different
aspects of social interaction, demonstrating the excitement and vigour of this
emerging discipline.
This book was originally published as an issue of the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B
(2003) 358, 429–602.
Christopher D. Frith London
Daniel M. Wolpert August 2003
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Contents
List of Contributors ix
Introduction: the study of social interactions xiii
T. Singer, D. M. Wolpert, and C. D. Frith
Biological motion:decoding social signals
1. Electrophysiology and brain imaging of biological motion 1
A. Puce and D. Perrett
2. Teleological and referential understanding of action in infancy 23
G. Csibra
3. Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing 45
U. Frith and C. D. Frith
4. Mathematical modelling of animate and intentional motion 77
J. Rittscher, A. Blake, A. Hoogs, and G. Stein
Mirror neurons:imitating the behaviour of others
5. What imitation tells us about social cognition: a rapprochement
between developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience 109
A. N. Meltzoff and J. Decety
6. Action generation and action perception in imitation:
an instance of the ideomotor principle 131
A. Wohlschläger, M. Gattis, and H. Bekkering
7. The manifold nature of interpersonal relations: the quest
for a common mechanism 159
V. Gallese
8. Imitation as behaviour parsing 183
R. W. Byrne
9. Computational approaches to motor learning by imitation 199
S. Schaal, A. Ijspeert, and A. Billard
Mentalizing:closing the communication loop
10. Detecting agents 219
S. C. Johnson
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viii Contents
11. Facial expressions, their communicatory functions and
neuro-cognitive substrates 241
R. J. R. Blair
12. Models of dyadic social interaction 265
D. Griffin and R. Gonzalez
13. Dressing the mind properly for the game 283
D. Sally
14. A unifying computational framework for motor control
and social interaction 305
D. M. Wolpert, K. Doya, and M. Kawato
Index 323
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List of Contributors
Harold Bekkering, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information,
University of Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, NL-6525 HR, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
Aude Billard, Computer Science and Neuroscience, University of Southern
California, 3641 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA and School
of Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, CH 1015
Lausanne, Switzerland
R.J.R.Blair,Unit on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience, Mood and Anxiety
Disorders Program, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute
of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, 15K North Drive,
Bethesda, MD 20892-2670, USA
Andrew Blake, Microsoft Research, 7 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge
CB3 0FB, UK
R.W.Byrne, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews,
Fife KY16 9JU, UK
Gergely Csibra, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, School of
Psychology, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK
Jean Decety,Center for Mind, Brain and Learning, University of Washington,
Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Kenji Doya, ATR Human Information Science Laboratories and CREST,
Japan Science and Technology Corporation, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho,
Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan.
Christopher D. Frith, Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience,
Institute of Neurology, University College London, Queen Square, London
WC1N 3AR, UK
Uta Frith, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London,
Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK
Vittorio Gallese, Istituto di Fisiologia Umana, Università di Parma, Via
Volturno, 39, 43100 Parma, Italy