Humans, like other primates, are intensely social creatures. One of the major functions of our brains must be to enable us to be as skilful in social interactions as we are in our interactions with the physical world (eg recognizing objects and grasping them). Furthermore, any differences between human brains and those of our nearest relatives, the great apes, are likely to be linked to our unique achievements in social interaction and communication rather than our motor or perceptual skills. In particular, humans have the ability to mentalize (or mind read), that is to perceive and communicate mental states, such as beliefs and desires. A key problem facing science therefore, is to uncover the biological mechanisms underlying our ability to read other minds and to show how these mechanisms evolved. To solve this problem we need to do experiments in which people (or animals) interact with one another rather than behaving in isolation. Such experiments are now being conducted in increasing numbers and many of the leading exponents of such experiments have contributed to this volume. 'The Neuroscience of Social Interactions' will be an important step in uncovering the biological mechanisms underlying social interactions - undoubtedly one of the major programs for neuroscience in the 21st century.
Author(s): Chris Frith, Daniel Wolpert
Edition: 1
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2004
Language: English
Commentary: +OCR
Pages: 363
Contents......Page 8
Plate Section......Page 360
List of Contributors......Page 10
Introduction: the study of social interactions......Page 14
1. Electrophysiology and brain imaging of biological motion......Page 30
2. Teleological and referential understanding of action in infancy......Page 52
3. Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing......Page 74
4. Mathematical modelling of animate and intentional motion......Page 106
5. What imitation tells us about social cognition: a rapprochement between developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience......Page 138
6. Action generation and action perception in imitation: an instance of the ideomotor principle......Page 160
7. The manifold nature of interpersonal relations: the quest for a common mechanism......Page 188
8. Imitation as behaviour parsing......Page 212
9. Computational approaches to motor learning by imitation......Page 228
10. Detecting agents......Page 248
11. Facial expressions, their communicatory functions and neuro-cognitive substrates......Page 270
12. Models of dyadic social interaction......Page 294
13. Dressing the mind properly for the game......Page 312
14. A unifying computational framework for motor control and social interaction......Page 334
B......Page 352
F......Page 353
I......Page 354
M......Page 355
P......Page 356
T......Page 357
Z......Page 358
