Starting from the question “What is a social interaction?” the chapter by Hanne De Jaegher and Ezequiel Di Paolo presents an enactive approach aimed at integrating individual cognition and the interaction process in order to arrive at new and more parsimonious explanations of social understanding. Their concept of participatory sense-making, connecting coordination with meaning-generation, contributes to the enrichment of the dialogue between cognitive science individualistic approaches on social cognition and social science approaches which are instead uniquely focussed on interactional behaviour.

In Chapter 4, Jessica Lindblom and Tom Ziemke contrast traditional, disembodied information-processing approaches to intersubjectivity in socio-cognitive research with more recent embodied approaches. Different notions of embodiment and their role in cognition and social interaction are clarified and a theoretical discussion on the function of the body in social interaction is conducted, integrating a broad range of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence from the different disciplines involved in intersubjectivity research.

The contribution by Timothy Racine, David Leavens, Noah Susswein and Tyler Wereha in Chapter 5 addresses some conceptual and methodological issues in the investigation of primate intersubjectivity, in particular the primates’ ability to point. They argue that the present debate about the human ability to declaratively point and the absence of this ability in other great apes, rests on problematic ideas about the nature of meaning and mind. In their view, the conception of the mind as an inner entity that is logically distinct from activity and cultural surroundings rearing history and so forth, give rise to conceptual and methodological problems that interfere with the interpretation of data and the construction of valid theories. 

In Chapter 6, Maurizio Tirassa and Francesca Bosco outline a theory of agency and communication cast in a mentalistic and radically constructivistic framework and discuss the role that the capability to share plays in it.

The final Chapter of Section II, by Giuseppe Riva, presents a conceptual framework that uses the concept of “Presence” – the feeling of being and acting in a world outside us” − to link the enaction of our intentions with the understanding of other people’s intentions.

In Section III  different basic aspects of intersubjectivity are investigated.

In Chapter 8, Jordan Zlatev, Ingar Brinck and Mats Andrén offer a model of perceptual intersubjectivity (PI), the phenomenon of two or more subjects focusing their attention on the same external target. Support fot this model is provided through an empirical study of adult-infant interaction in two species of great apes (chimpanzees and bonobos) and human beeings.

The Chapter 9, by Stein Bråten, regards the ability of infant and adults to imitatively re-enact  what they have seen being done or co-enact what the companion is doing. This intersubjective enactment is illustrated with reference to layers of intersubjective attunement in ontogeny and with a focus on infant learning by altercentric participation in what the model is doing in face-to-face situation, as if they were co-author of the model’s actions. With reference to mirror neurons discovery, the neurosocial support by an altercentric mirror system is indicated.

In Chapter 10 Manos Tsakiris addresses the question of how the self can be distinguished from other people, described as “self-other distinction”. Taking into account and discussing perspectives and evidences in cognitive neuroscience studies,  the author puts forward the hypothesis that the experience and representation of one’s body may underpin the distinction between the self and other agents.

In Chapter 11 Wolfgang Prinz gives a cognitive science perspective on social mirroring, the notion that the individuals come to perceive and understand themselves by understanding how their conduct is perceived, received and understood by others. Varieties of social mirroring, arising from different modes of mirroring and different modes of communication, are proposed by the author. For social mirroring to work, it is argued that two basic requirements must be fulfilled, a functional one − the operation of representational devices with mirror-like properties – and a social one – the discourse and practices for using and exploiting mirrors within social interaction.

Chapter 12, by Moritz Daum, Norbert Zmyj and Giza Aschersleben, addresses the controversially discussed question of how infants’ abilities to perceive and understand  goal-directed action is interrelated with their competence to perform the same behaviour. With the aim of contradicting results in studies on the development of this interrelation, the chapter integrates various findings in recent studies investigating perception, production and imitation of goal-directed action and discusses them in the light of existing hypotheses and theories.

In Chapter 13 Antonella Carassa, Marco Colombetti and Francesca Morganti contend that certain explanatory inadequacies of current models of intersubjectivity depend on failing to appreciate the fundamental role of normativity in collective intentionality. Basing their argument on Margaret Gilbert’s theory of plural subjects, the authors try to show how the concept of joint commitment is a powerful tool in order to explain certain specific features of human joint activities and discuss some lines along which a psychology of plural subjects can be developed.

How intersubjectivity is enacted in interaction is the focus of  Section IV.

Music performance is examined in Chapter 14 by Peter Keller, where the author explains how ensemble musicians coordinate their actions with remarkable precision. Three cognitive processes which enable individuals to realize shared goals when engaged in musical joint action are illustrated and the way in which these processes interact to determine ensemble coordination is discussed.

In Chapter 15 Wolfgang Prinz and Gertrud Rapinett consider how participants engaged in a specific task enact their abilities to represent partially occluded actions. To investigate if  simulation, that is the representation of the events during occlusion,  merely carries on old processes or initiates new ones, an experimental paradigm is used that allows one to study the impact that features of unoccluded action segments make on the representation of occluded segments. The results suggest that action simulation is a creative process creating novel, invisible actions rather than extrapolating visible actions.

In Chapter 16 Jonathan Cole refers to his extensive studies on the role of face in the constitution of self in relation to others and on the impact of this aspect on interpersonal relationship. His investigation is based on the idea of exploring the role of face by taking into account what happens when something goes wrong as in Moebious syndrome, focusing  on the subjective experience of the person – in − interaction. In this sense, his work can be characterized in terms of a “first person approach” to the study of consciousness, with a primary attention on first person data as expressed in narratives.

Finally Chapter 17 by Fran Hagstrom is aimed at theoretically exploring intersubjectivity  when social development goes awry, in the case of autism. The main point of the chapter is to complement the neurodevelopmental view of autism as a cognitive disorder with an investigation into the individual developmental paths of intersubjectivity in everyday life. The adopted socio-cultural framework and the analysis of a case-study material allow the author to show how intersubjectivity may be experienced differently depending on everyday situations and to develop the idea that cultural tools and social others often function to support late−emerging intersubjectivity during adolescence.

The Editors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of a number of people and institutions without whose help this project could not have been carried out. We would like to thank the Istituto Auxologico Italiano, the University of Lugano and the Catholic University of Milan for their support. We acknowledge the European Community for grant given to Giuseppe Riva and Francesca Morganti for the FP6 project PASION (IST-2005-027654). We are also grateful to Laura Carelli who volunteered to help the Editors in the complex editorial process that was involved in the preparation of the current book.

Francesca Morganti, Ph.D.
Institute of Communication Psychology and Sociology
University of Lugano
Lugano, Switzerland

Antonella Carassa, Ph.D.
Institute of Communication Psychology and Sociology
University of Lugano
Lugano, Switzerland

Giuseppe Riva, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Catholic University of Sacred Heart
Milan, Italy

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