Can a theory-based view of social cognition explain second-person interactions?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Suilin Lavelle
2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-124
Author(s):  
Michael Kimmel

Abstract The article explores the prerequisites of embodied ‘conversations’ in the improvisational pair dance tango argentino. Tango has been characterized as a dialog of two bodies. Using first- and second-person phenomenological methods, I investigate the skills that enable two dancers to move as a super-individual ensemble, to communicate without time lag, and to feel the partner’s intention at every moment. How can two persons - walking in opposite directions and with partly different knowledge - remain in contact throughout, when every moment can be an invention? I analyze these feats through the lens of image schemas such as BALANCE, FORCE, PATH, and UP-DOWN (Johnson 1987). Technique-related discourse - with its use of didactic metaphor - abounds with image-schematic vectors, geometries, and construal operations like profiling. These enable the tango process: from posture, via walking technique and kinetics, to attention and contact skills. Dancers who organize their muscles efficiently - e.g., through core tension - and who respect postural ‘grammar’ - e.g., a good axis - enable embodied dialog by being receptive to their partners and being manoeuvrable. Super-individual imagery that defines ‘good’ states for a couple to stick to, along with relational attention management and kinetic calibration of joint walking, turns the dyad into a single action unit. My further objective is a micro-phenomenological analysis of joint improvisation. This requires a theory to explain dynamic sensing, the combining of repertory knowledge with this, and the managing of both in small increments. Dancers strategically sense action affordances (Gibson 1979) or recognize and exploit them on the fly. Dynamic routines allow them to negotiate workable configurations step-wise, assisted by their knowledge of node points where the elements of tango are most naturally connected and re-routed. The paper closes with general lessons to learn from these highly structured and embodied improvisational skills, especially regarding certain blind spots in current social cognition theory.


2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Søren Overgaard ◽  
Joel Krueger

AbstractWe resist Schilbach et al.'s characterization of the “social perception” approach to social cognition as a “spectator theory” of other minds. We show how the social perception view acknowledges the crucial role interaction plays in enabling social understanding. We also highlight a dilemma Schilbach et al. face in attempting to distinguish their second-person approach from the social perception view.


2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 424-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-François Gariépy ◽  
Steve W. C. Chang ◽  
Michael L. Platt

AbstractIn the target article, Schilbach et al. defend a “second-person neuroscience” perspective that focuses on the neural basis of social cognition during live, ongoing interactions between individuals. We argue that a second-person neuroscience would benefit from formal approaches borrowed from economics and behavioral ecology and that it should be extended to social interactions in nonhuman animals.


2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonhard Schilbach ◽  
Bert Timmermans ◽  
Vasudevi Reddy ◽  
Alan Costall ◽  
Gary Bente ◽  
...  

AbstractIn spite of the remarkable progress made in the burgeoning field of social neuroscience, the neural mechanisms that underlie social encounters are only beginning to be studied and could – paradoxically – be seen as representing the “dark matter” of social neuroscience. Recent conceptual and empirical developments consistently indicate the need for investigations that allow the study of real-time social encounters in a truly interactive manner. This suggestion is based on the premise that social cognition is fundamentally different when we are in interaction with others rather than merely observing them. In this article, we outline the theoretical conception of a second-person approach to other minds and review evidence from neuroimaging, psychophysiological studies, and related fields to argue for the development of a second-person neuroscience, which will help neuroscience to really “go social”; this may also be relevant for our understanding of psychiatric disorders construed as disorders of social cognition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Oakley

AbstractMuch social cognition and action is dialogical in nature and profitably understood from a second-person perspective. The elemental social roles of “debtor” and “creditor” are of great importance in explaining the structure and history of a wide range of social facts and institutions. Yet these person-level experiences of indebtedness and the mental spaces they engender are not sufficient to account for complex social facts. Sovereign money systems are a leading example where our person-level experiences of exchange lead us astray by actively hindering our ability to grasp money’s macroeconomic functions. This article provides a comprehensive account of money as a distributed cognitive phenomenon. It summarizes and critiques a prior analysis of money as a conceptual blend enabling


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Joshua Johnson

I argue that if Wittgenstein’s Private language Argument is correct, then both Theory-Theory and Simulation Theory are inadequate accounts of how we come to know other minds since both theories assume the reality of a private language. Further, following the work of a number of philosophers and psychologists, I defend a ‘Second-Person Approach’ to mindreading according to which it is possible for us to be directly aware of at least some of the mental states of others. because it is not necessary to assume a private language within the Second-Person Approach, I argue that this account of social cognition is superior to Theory-Theory and Simulation Theory since it avoids the objections of the PlA.


Author(s):  
Ivana Anton Mlinar

Gran parte de los estudios sobre la naturaleza de la cognición social, que también se ha entendido como una perspectiva de se-gunda persona, ha tenido lugar en el marco de la llamada “teoría de la mente”, entendida básicamente como capacidad inferencial de atribución de estados mentales. La fenomenología, por el contrario, advierte la naturaleza corporizada e integrada de la experiencia de sí, lo que permite, consecuentemente, el acceso inmediato a la experiencia vivida del otro. La incorporación de esta comprensión de la cognición social en el ámbito experimental ha planteado un giro interactivo: de perspectivas observacionales y mecanismos individuales a escenarios interactivos y procesos participativos. Este trabajo se propone mostrar tanto el sentido fenomenológico de la cognición social como así también las diversas interpretaciones que han encontrado aplicación en la experimentación neurocientífica en cuanto perspectivas de segunda persona, a fin de evaluar sus aportes y ofrecer posibles tareas aún pendientes.Most of the studies on the nature of social cognition, which has also been understood as second-person perspective, have taken place within the framework of the so-called "theory of mind", basically understood as inferential capacity for attribution of mental states. Phenomenology, on the contrary, shows the embodied and integrated nature of self-experience, which consequently allows immediate access to the lived experience of the other. The incorporation of this understanding of social cognition in the experimental field has proposed an interactive turn: from observational perspectives and individual mechanisms to interactive scenarios and participatory processes. This work aims to show both the phenomenological meaning of social cognition as well as the various interpretations that have found application in neuroscientific experimentation as second-person perspectives, in order to evaluate their contributions and offer possible open tasks.


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