Infants' Grasp of Others' Intentions

ABSTRACT— The perception of others as intentional agents is fundamental to human experience and foundational to development. Recent research reveals that this cornerstone of social perception has its roots early in infancy, and that it is influenced by the universal, early-emerging human experience of engaging in goal-directed action. Infants' own action capabilities correlate with their emerging tendency to view others' actions as organized by goals. Moreover, interventions that facilitate new goal-directed actions alter infants' perception of those same actions in others. These effects seem to depend on the first-person aspects of infants' experience. These findings open new questions about how doing leads to knowing in the social domain.     

作弊为什么会传染?社会损失和作弊态度的中介作用

为了解释考试作弊的"传染"现象,研究探讨大学考试情境中他人作弊对观察者将来作弊意向的效应,假设他人作弊通过社会损失和作弊态度的链式中介作用对观察者将来作弊意向产生效应。研究采用他人作弊问卷、社会损失问卷、作弊态度问卷、将来作弊意向问卷,对765名在校大学生进行调查。在控制了性别、年级、第一次作弊的时间和经常作弊的开始时间之后,研究发现：（1）他人作弊正向预测观察者将来作弊意向;（2）社会损失在他人作弊和观察者将来作弊意向之间起中介作用;（3）社会损失与作弊态度在他人作弊与观察者将来作弊意向之间起链式中介作用。研究为理解考试作弊的"传染"现象及其内在机制提供了有价值的视角。     

Joint action: bodies and minds moving together

The ability to coordinate our actions with those of others is crucial for our success as individuals and as a species. Progress in understanding the cognitive and neural processes involved in joint action has been slow and sparse, because cognitive neuroscientists have predominantly studied individual minds and brains in isolation. However, in recent years, major advances have been made by investigating perception and action in social context. In this article we outline how studies on joint attention, action observation, task sharing, action coordination and agency contribute to the understanding of the cognitive and neural processes supporting joint action. Several mechanisms are proposed that allow individuals to share representations, to predict actions, and to integrate predicted effects of own and others' actions.     

Representing others' actions: just like one's own?

Previous research has shown that observing others' actions can affect individual performance of the same actions. In the present study, we developed a new paradigm to investigate whether and how complementary actions at the disposal of another agent are represented and influence one's own actions. A spatial compatibility task was distributed among two people so that each participant took care of one of two responses. The identical task was performed alone and alongside another participant. There was a spatial compatibility effect in the group setting only. It was similar to the effect obtained when one person took care of both responses. This result suggests that one's own actions and others' actions are represented in a functionally equivalent way.     

The handedness of imagined bodies in action and the role of perspective taking

Past research at the nexus of motor control and perception investigated the role of perspective taking in many behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Some investigators addressed the issue of one's own vs. others' action imagination, but the possible effects of a front or a back view in imagining others' actions have so far been neglected. We report two 'single trial' experiments in which a total of 640 participants were asked to imagine a person performing a manual action - either in a front or in a back view - and then to indicate the hand used by the imagined person during movement execution. In such a task, we assume the existence of two distinct biases: a perceptual-mnemonic bias due to subjects' visual experience of others' actions, encouraging them to imagine right-handed movements, and a motor bias due to subjects' experience of self-made actions, encouraging them to imagine movements performed with the same hand as their dominant hand. We hypothesized that a greater involvement of motor representations in the back view compared to the front view could result in an increased correspondence between one's own manual preference and the hand used by the imagined agent in the former condition. The results of both experiments were consistent with this hypothesis, suggesting that while imagining others' actions we employ motor simulations in different degrees according to the perspective adopted.     

动作自主性与结果性质对不同预测性条件下施动感的影响

采用时间估计法考察动作自主性水平、动作结果性质(利己、利他、中性)以及结果是否可预测对施动感的影响。结果发现, 高自主性的自由选择条件比低自主性的服从条件增强了个体的施动感, 且不受动作结果性质与结果是否可预测的影响; 在低自主性的服从条件下, 当结果可预测时利己结果比利他结果的施动感更强, 而在结果不可预测时利己和利他结果的施动感没有区别, 但均弱于中性结果。这揭示出动作的主观意愿在施动感产生过程中的重要作用, 同时在自主性较低的服从条件下, 对利己或利他道德属性的动作结果能否被预测, 对个体的施动感产生了不同的影响。研究结果说明具有利己或利他道德属性的动作对施动感会产生自上而下的调节作用, 且这种调节作用在低自主条件下较为突显。     

Social cognition in simple action coordination: A case for direct perception

In this paper we sketch the outlines of an account of the kind of social cognition involved in simple action coordination that is based on direct social perception (DSP) rather than recursive mindreading. While we recognize the viability of a mindreading-based account such as e.g. Michael Tomasello’s, we present an alternative DSP account that (i) explains simple action coordination in a less cognitively demanding manner, (ii) is better able to explain flexibility and strategy-switching in coordination and crucially (iii) allows for formal modeling. This account of action coordination is based on the notion of an agent’s field of affordances. Coordination ensues, we argue, when, given a shared intention, the actions of and/or affordances for one agent shape the field of affordances for another agent. This a form of social perception since in particular perceiving affordances for another person involves seeing that person as an agent. It is a form of social perception since it involves perceiving affordances for another person and registering how another person’s actions influence one’s own perceived field of affordances.     

The Experience of Agency: Feelings, Judgments, and Responsibility

ABSTRACT— The experience of agency refers to the experience of being in control both of one's own actions and, through them, of events in the external world. Recent experimental studies have investigated how people recognise a particular event as being caused by their own action or by that of another person. These studies suggest that people match sensory inputs to a prediction based on the action they are performing. Other studies have contrasted voluntary actions to physically similar but passive body movements. These studies suggest that voluntary action triggers wide-ranging changes in the spatial and temporal experience not only of one's own body but also of external events. Prediction and monitoring of the consequences of one's own motor commands produces characteristic experiences that form our normal, everyday feeling of being in control of our life. We conclude by discussing the implications of recent psychological work for our notions of responsibility for action.     

FREE WILL AND LUCK

I present an account of how agents can know what they are doing when they intentionally execute object-oriented actions. When an agent executes an object-oriented intentional action, she uses perception in such a way that it can fulfil a justificatory role for her knowledge of her own action and it can fulfil this justificatory role without being inferentially linked to the cognitive states that it justifies. I argue for this proposal by meeting two challenges: in an agent's knowledge of her action perception can only play an enabling role (and no justificatory role) for the agent's knowledge and if perception has a justificatory role, then the agent's knowledge must be inferential.     

自我参照框架决定了自我面孔优势效应的出现

研究使用外显面孔再认实验(实验一)和内隐面孔感知实验(实验二)检验自我参照框架是否是自我面孔加工优势出现的决定性因素这一假设。具有不同朝向(左或右)的被试自己面孔和朋友面孔呈现在视野中央, 实验一中, 被试的任务为参照自我框架(观察者角度)或他人框架(被观察的像的角度)判断自我面孔的朝向(忽视朋友面孔), 或者判断朋友面孔的朝向(忽视自我面孔); 实验二中, 被试的任务为参照自我框架或他人框架判断所有面孔的朝向。结果表明：自我参照框架促进自我面孔加工优势的出现, 而他人参照框架消减自我面孔优势, 这种效应稳定地存在于外显和内隐两项任务中。并且, 自我参照框架对自我优势效应的促进作用不依赖于面孔刺激背景。     

场景知觉过程中的动作意图识别

场景即我们生活于其中的真实环境, 社会场景是其重要组成部分。在社会场景知觉的研究中, 动作意图的识别既受场景背景信息的影响, 也与动作的客观对象有关。因此, 研究者可以根据背景-刺激物、刺激物-刺激物关系, 探索动作识别的影响机制; 另一方面, 也可以根据场景的语义约束和物理限制, 依据合理动作原则及其伴随的生理指标检测并识别动作意图。在机器视觉研究领域, 计算机识别模型为社会场景中动作意图的检测和识别提供了新的视角。在未来的研究中, 研究者需要考虑真实场景中动作意图识别能力的发展、动作意图识别的个体差异和文化差异等问题。     

Action production influences 12-month-old infants' attention to others' actions

Recent work implicates a link between action control systems and action understanding. In this study, we investigated the role of the motor system in the development of visual anticipation of others' actions. Twelve-month-olds engaged in behavioral and observation tasks. Containment activity, infants' spontaneous engagement in producing containment actions; and gaze latency, how quickly they shifted gaze to the goal object of another's containment actions, were measured. Findings revealed a positive relationship: infants who received the behavior task first evidenced a strong correlation between their own actions and their subsequent gaze latency of another's actions. Learning over the course of trials was not evident. These findings demonstrate a direct influence of the motor system on online visual attention to others' actions early in development.     

Temporal perception is enhanced for goal-directed biological actions

ABSTRACT

Research into the visual perception of goal-directed human action indicates that human action perception makes use of specialized processing systems, similar to those that operate in visual expertise. Against this background, the current research investigated whether perception of temporal information in goal-directed human action is enhanced relative to similar motion stimuli. Experiment 1 compared observers’ sensitivity to speed changes in upright human action to a kinematic control (an animation yoked to the motion of the human hand), and also to inverted human action. Experiment 2 compared human action to a non-human motion control (a tool moved the object). In both experiments observers’ sensitivity to detecting the speed changes was higher for the human stimuli relative to the control stimuli, and inversion in Experiment 1 did not alter observers’ sensitivity. Experiment 3 compared observers’ sensitivity to speed changes in goal-directed human and dog actions, in order to determine if enhanced temporal perception is unique to human actions. Results revealed no difference between human and dog stimuli, indicating that enhanced speed perception may exist for any biological motion. Results are discussed with reference to theories of biological motion perception and perception in visual expertise.     

Two‐year‐old children preferentially transmit simple actions but not pedagogically demonstrated actions

Children are sensitive to both social and non‐social aspects of the learning environment. Among social cues, pedagogical communication has been shown to not only play a role in children's learning, but also in their own active transmission of knowledge. Vredenburgh, Kushnir and Casasola, Developmental Science, 2015, 18, 645 showed that 2‐year‐olds are more likely to demonstrate an action to a naive adult after learning it in a pedagogical than in a non‐pedagogical context. This finding was interpreted as evidence that pedagogically transmitted information has a special status as culturally relevant. Here we test the limits of this claim by setting it in contrast with an explanation in which the relevance of information is the outcome of multiple interacting social (e.g., pedagogical demonstration) and non‐social properties (e.g., action complexity). To test these competing hypotheses, we varied both pedagogical cues and action complexity in an information transmission paradigm with 2‐year‐old children. In Experiment 1, children preferentially transmitted simple non‐pedagogically demonstrated actions over pedagogically demonstrated more complex actions. In Experiment 2, when both actions were matched for complexity, we found no evidence of preferential transmission of pedagogically demonstrated actions. We discuss possible reasons for the discrepancy between our results and previous literature showing an effect of pedagogical cues on cultural transmission, and conclude that our results are compatible with the view that pedagogical and other cues interact, but incompatible with the theory of a privileged role for pedagogical cues.     

The mirror reflects both ways: Action influences perception of others

Substantial evidence links perception of others’ bodies and mental representation of the observer’s own body; however, the overwhelming majority of this evidence is unidirectional, showing influence from perception to action. It has been proposed that the influence also runs from action to perception, but to date the evidence is scant. Here we report that ordinary motor actions performed by the subject affect concurrent psychophysical judgments of human-body stimuli. Subjects remained unaware of the connection between the action and the main task. The results show that perception can change as a result of the observer’s ongoing actions.     

Your own actions influence how you perceive other people: A misattribution of action appraisals

The attribution of personal traits to other persons depends on the actions the observer performs at the same time (Bach & Tipper, 2007). Here, we show that the effect reflects a misattribution of appraisals of the observers’ own actions to the actions of others. We exploited spatial compatibility effects to manipulate how fluently—how fast and how accurately—participants identified two individuals performing sporty or academic actions. The traits attributed to each person in a subsequent rating task depended on the fluency of participants’ responses in a specific manner. An individual more fluently identified while performing the academic action appeared more academic and less sporty. An individual more fluently identified while performing the sporty action appeared sportier. Thus, social perception is—at least partially—embodied. The ease of our own responses can be misattributed to the actions of others, affecting which personal traits are attributed to them.     

Action history influences eye movements

Recent research has revealed that simple actions can have a profound effect on subsequent perception – people are faster to find a target that shares features with a previously acted on object even when those features are irrelevant to their task (the action effect). However, the majority of the evidence for this interaction between action and perception has come from manual response data. Therefore, it is unknown whether action affects early visual search processes, if it modulates post-attentional-selection processes, or both. To investigate this, we tracked participants’ spontaneous eye movements as they performed an action effect task. In two experiments we found that participants looked more quickly to the colour of an object they had previously acted on, compared to if they had viewed but not acted on the object, showing that action influenced early visual search processes. Additionally, there was evidence for post-selection effects as well. The results suggest that prior action affects both pre-selection and post-selection processes – spontaneously guiding attention to, and maintaining it on, objects that were previously important to the observer.     

When the self represents the other: a new cognitive neuroscience view on psychological identification

There is converging evidence from developmental and cognitive psychology, as well as from neuroscience, to suggest that the self is both special and social, and that self-other interaction is the driving force behind self-development. We review experimental findings which demonstrate that human infants are motivated for social interactions and suggest that the development of an awareness of other minds is rooted in the implicit notion that others are like the self. We then marshall evidence from functional neuroimaging explorations of the neurophysiological substrate of shared representations between the self and others, using various ecological paradigms such as mentally representing one's own actions versus others' actions, watching the actions executed by others, imitating the others' actions versus being imitated by others. We suggest that within this shared neural network the inferior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere play a special role in the essential ability to distinguish the self from others, and in the way the self represents the other. Interestingly, the right hemisphere develops its functions earlier than the left.