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Social neuroscience has often been criticized for approaching the investigation of the neural processes that enable social interaction and cognition from a passive, detached, third-person perspective, with participants acting as mere... more
Social neuroscience has often been criticized for approaching the investigation of the neural processes that enable social interaction and cognition from a passive, detached, third-person perspective, with participants acting as mere observers of others’ behavior and making judgements based on their observations, without involving any real time social interaction. With the emergence of so-called second-person neuroscience, investigators have enriched the field with findings that evince the unique complexity of neural activation patterns in actual, real-time interaction. This line of work suggests that the kind of social cognition that occurs during social interaction is fundamentally different to that unfolding during social observation. However, it remains unclear how the neural correlates of social interaction are to be interpreted. Here, we leverage the active inference framework to shed light on the mechanisms at play during social interaction in second-person neuroscience studi...
Human trust can be construed as a heuristic wager on the predictability and benevolence of others, within a compatible worldview. A leap of faith across gaps in information. Generally, we posit that trust constitutes a functional bridge... more
Human trust can be construed as a heuristic wager on the predictability and benevolence of others, within a compatible worldview. A leap of faith across gaps in information. Generally, we posit that trust constitutes a functional bridge between individual and group homeostasis, by helping minimize energy consumed in continuously monitoring the behavior of others and verifying their assertions, thus reducing group complexity and facilitating coordination. Indeed, we argue that trust is crucial to the formation and maintenance of collective entities. However, the wager that trust represents in the face of uncertainty leaves the possibility of misallocated trust, which can result in maladaptive outcomes for both individuals and groups. More specifically, trust can be thought of as a scale-invariant property of minimizing prediction error within ascending levels of social hierarchy ranging from individual brains to dyads, groups and societies, and ultimately civilizations. This framewor...
In this review, we propose that interpersonal bodily interactions represent a fertile ground in which the bodily and psychological self is developed, gradually allowing for forms of more abstract and disembodied interactions. We start by... more
In this review, we propose that interpersonal bodily interactions represent a fertile ground in which the bodily and psychological self is developed, gradually allowing for forms of more abstract and disembodied interactions. We start by focusing on how early infant-caregiver bodily interactions, mediated by the sense of touch, play a crucial role in shaping the boundaries of the self but also in learning to predict others’ behavior. We then explore the social function of the sense of touch in the entire life span, highlighting its role in promoting physical and psychological wellbeing by supporting positive interpersonal exchanges. We go on by introducing the concept of implicit theory of mind, as the very early ability to interpret others’ intentions, possibly grounded in infant-caregiver bodily exchanges (embodied practices). In the second section, we embrace a more collective perspective about the role of sociality in human development, by describing the hypothesis of “dialectic...
Autistic traits are known to be associated with social interaction difficulties. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, relevant research has been typically restricted to studying individuals. In line with the ‘dialectical misattunement hypothesis’... more
Autistic traits are known to be associated with social interaction difficulties. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, relevant research has been typically restricted to studying individuals. In line with the ‘dialectical misattunement hypothesis’ and clinical insights of intact social interactions among autistic individuals, we hypothesized that friendship quality varies as a function of interpersonal similarity and more concretely the difference value of autistic traits in a dyad, above and beyond autistic traits per se. Therefore, in this study, we used self-report questionnaires to investigate these measures in a sample of 67 neurotypical dyads across a broad range of autistic traits. Our results demonstrate that the more similar two persons are in autistic traits, the higher is the perceived quality of their friendship, irrespective of friendship duration, age, sex and, importantly, the (average of) autistic traits in a given dyad. More specifically, higher interpersonal similarity of a...
Thinking Through Other Minds (TTOM) creatively situates the free energy principle within real-life cultural processes, thereby enriching both sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of cognition. Here, shifting the attention from... more
Thinking Through Other Minds (TTOM) creatively situates the free energy principle within real-life cultural processes, thereby enriching both sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of cognition. Here, shifting the attention from thinking to becoming, we suggest complementing such an account by focusing on the empirical, computational and conceptual investigation of the multiscale dynamics of social interaction.
The sense of agency is a core element of self-experiences and is defined as the feeling of oneself being the ‘initiator’ of an action. It is thought to depend on an implicit coupling of action-outcome predictions and the sensory... more
The sense of agency is a core element of self-experiences and is defined as the feeling of oneself being the ‘initiator’ of an action. It is thought to depend on an implicit coupling of action-outcome predictions and the sensory perception of the action. This concept is well-studied in the motor-domain, but less is known about agency during social interactions. It is clear that a sense of agency also occurs when we perform a social action (e. g. looking at someone’s eyes) and receiving feedback by another person (e. g. returning eye-contact). Here, we will refer to the experience of agency within a social interaction as the sense of social agency. The main aim of this article is to first, describe the concept of social agency and second review how virtual reality can help to simulate social interactions in order to systematically study self-experiences and social agency. Gaze-contingent eye-tracking paradigms represent a powerful tool in this endeavour, while we emphasise the import...
Drawing on sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of brain function, in this article we construe psychiatric conditions as disorders of social interaction to fully account for their complexity and dynamicity across levels of... more
Drawing on sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of brain function, in this article we construe psychiatric conditions as disorders of social interaction to fully account for their complexity and dynamicity across levels of description and temporal scales. After an introduction of the theoretical underpinnings of our integrative approach, we take autism spectrum conditions (ASC) as a paradigm example and discuss how neurocognitive hypotheses can be translated into a Bayesian formulation, i.e., in terms of predictive processing and active inference. We then argue that consideration of individuals (even within a Bayesian framework) will not be enough for a comprehensive understanding of psychiatric conditions and consequently put forward the dialectical misattunement hypothesis, which views psychopathology not merely as disordered function within single brains but also as a dynamic interpersonal mismatch that encompasses various levels of description. Moving from a mere compari...
A novel educational environment for kids with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs), namely NOESIS, is presented in this paper. NOESIS takes into account ASD kids ’ individual characteristics (level of autism, source sensitivity, reaction... more
A novel educational environment for kids with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs), namely NOESIS, is presented in this paper. NOESIS takes into account ASD kids ’ individual characteristics (level of autism, source sensitivity, reaction target, etc), their emotional state (stress level, hyper-/hypo-tension) during their educational procedure, and creativity during guided- and selfactivity (e.g., gaming). It adapts to each kid’s specific characteristics through system adaptation and selfregulation procedures. Moreover, it provides assistance to the educator for preparation, customization and optimization of the educational material for each kid and provision of enhanced evaluation procedures (scores/tools) via well-managed Web Services. Parents’ updating is also provided via reporting material with learning curve descriptions. Overall, NOESIS contributes to the provision of opportunities to all ASD children to be educated by facilitating access and tuning innovative technology to soci...
 We hypothesize that thalamocortical connections after mapping by diffusion tensor imaging can serve as surrogate markers of individual anatomy, which can then be used for localizing specific neurosurgical targets in the thalamus. A... more
 We hypothesize that thalamocortical connections after mapping by diffusion tensor imaging can serve as surrogate markers of individual anatomy, which can then be used for localizing specific neurosurgical targets in the thalamus. A variety of learning schemes, together with preand postprocessing steps are studied for our goal of thalamic nuclei localization. The training procedure is performed after non-linear registration and probabilistic tractography on diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data. Our results indicate that thalamocortical connectivity data do contain sufficient discriminant internucleus information for thalamic nuclei localization.
Conventional paradigms can successfully capture many cognitive processes, unveiling several (patho-)physiological mechanisms. However, often they come at the cost of tedious tasks for the participants, which can impose critical... more
Conventional paradigms can successfully capture many cognitive processes, unveiling several (patho-)physiological mechanisms. However, often they come at the cost of tedious tasks for the participants, which can impose critical restrictions especially when it comes to certain neurocognitive conditions. Immersive videogames could provide an entertaining alternative of higher ecological validity. Eye or other body movements could then be modeled for unveiling cognition, for example by modeling frameworks based on predictive coding theories for brain function. In this project, we present an approach that combines video games, eye tracking and Bayesian modeling (i.e. HGF, [1]) for studying learning and decision-making. To that end, first, an interactive videogame was developed. The player’s goal was to maximize a score by efficiently exploiting regularities in the environment, i.e. the game’s structure. Second, we conducted a proof-of-concept study with 10 healthy volunteers, considerin...
Poster: "ECR 2012 / C-1991 / Application of pattern recognition techniques to locate the Vim thalamic nucleus based on thalamocortical tractography" by: "D. Bolis1, A. Jakab1, O. Goksel1, G. Szekely2; 1Zurich/CH,... more
Poster: "ECR 2012 / C-1991 / Application of pattern recognition techniques to locate the Vim thalamic nucleus based on thalamocortical tractography" by: "D. Bolis1, A. Jakab1, O. Goksel1, G. Szekely2; 1Zurich/CH, 2Zurich/CH"
Autistic traits are known to be associated with social interaction difficulties. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, relevant research has been typically restricted to studying individuals. In line with the 'dialectical misattunement hypothesis'... more
Autistic traits are known to be associated with social interaction difficulties. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, relevant research has been typically restricted to studying individuals. In line with the 'dialectical misattunement hypothesis' and clinical insights of intact social interactions among autistic individuals, we hypothesized that friendship quality varies as a function of interpersonal similarity and more concretely the difference value of autistic traits in a dyad, above and beyond autistic traits per se. Therefore, in this study, we used self-report questionnaires to investigate these measures in a sample of 67 neurotypical dyads across a broad range of autistic traits. Our results demonstrate that the more similar two persons are in autistic traits, the higher is the perceived quality of their friendship, irrespective of friendship duration, age, sex and, importantly, the (average of) autistic traits in a given dyad. More specifically, higher interpersonal similarity of autistic traits was associated with higher measures of closeness, acceptance and help. These results, therefore, lend support to the idea of an interactive turn in the study of social abilities across the autism spectrum and pave the way for future studies on the multiscale dynamics of social interactions.
Thinking Through Other Minds (TTOM) creatively situates the free energy principle within real-life cultural processes, thereby enriching both sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of cognition. Here, shifting the attention from... more
Thinking Through Other Minds (TTOM) creatively situates the free energy principle within real-life cultural processes, thereby enriching both sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of cognition. Here, shifting the attention from thinking to becoming, we suggest complementing such an account by focusing on the empirical, computational and conceptual investigation of the multiscale dynamics of social interaction. We applaud Veissière and colleagues for pursuing the ambitious goal of situating the free energy principle within the context of sociocultural processes (cf. TTOM; 2019). This is, indeed, a much needed undertaking, which has only recently started developing, holding promise for advancing not only relevant sociocultural research fields, but also computational psychiatry (cf. Friston and Frith, 2015; Bolis and Schilbach, 2017; 2018b; Gallagher and Allen, 2018; Constant et al., 2019). In fact, human cognition and culture have often been studied in isolation. For instance, the field of computational psychiatry has been developing rigorous experimental protocols and mathematical toolboxes to mechanistically explain human cognition and action. Yet, until recently a rather individualistic perspective has been adopted, which neglects levels of description beyond the individual (cf. De Jaegher and Di Paolo, 2007; Schilbach et al., 2013; Kirmayer and Crafa, 2014; Bolis et al., 2017). On the other hand, sociocultural fields, such as cultural anthropology, have rightfully adopted a more holistic perspective to complex
In this article, moving from being to becoming, we construe the ‘self’ as a dynamic process rather than as a static entity. To this end we draw on dialectics and Bayesian accounts of cognition. The former allows us to holistically... more
In this article, moving from being to becoming, we construe the ‘self’ as a dynamic process rather than as a static entity. To this end we draw on dialectics and Bayesian accounts of cognition. The former allows us to holistically consider the ‘self’ as the interplay between internalization and externalization and the latter to operationalize our suggestion formally. Internalization is considered here as the co-construction of bodily hierarchical models of the (social) world and the organism, while externalization is taken as the collective transformation of the world. We do not consider these processes as sequentially linked, but rather as a dialectic between the collective and the individual. This leads us to the suggestion of the self as a historical product of dialectical attunement across multiple time scales, from species evolution and culture to individual development and everyday learning. Subsequently, we describe concrete means for empirically testing our proposal in the form of two-person psychophysiology and multi-level analyses of intersubjectivity. Taken together, we suggest that a fine-grained analysis of social interaction might allow us to reconsider the ‘self’ beyond the static individual, i.e. how it emerges and manifests itself in social relations. Such an approach, we believe, could be relevant in multiple fields, from ethics and psychiatry to pedagogy and artificial intelligence.
Drawing on sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of brain function, in this article we construe psychiatric conditions as disorders of social interaction to fully account for their complexity and dynamicity across levels of... more
Drawing on sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of
brain function, in this article we construe psychiatric conditions
as disorders of social interaction to fully account for
their complexity and dynamicity across levels of description
and temporal scales. After an introduction of the theoretical
underpinnings of our integrative approach, we take autism
spectrum conditions (ASC) as a paradigm example and discuss
how neurocognitive hypotheses can be translated into
a Bayesian formulation, i.e., in terms of predictive processing
and active inference. We then argue that consideration of
individuals (even within a Bayesian framework) will not be
enough for a comprehensive understanding of psychiatric
conditions and consequently put forward the dialectical
misattunement hypothesis , which views psychopathology
not merely as disordered function within single brains but
also as a dynamic interpersonal mismatch that encompasses
various levels of description. Moving from a mere comparison
of groups, i.e., “healthy” persons versus “patients,” to a
fine-grained analysis of social interactions within dyads and
groups of individuals will open new avenues and may allow
to avoid an overly neurocentric scope in psychiatric research
as well as help to reduce social exclusion.
In their thought-provoking and integrative target article Fotopoulou and Tsakiris cut across different bodies of literature to argue for a second-person account of interoception and social cognition. More specifically, they argue for the... more
In their thought-provoking and integrative target article Fotopoulou and Tsakiris cut across different bodies of literature to argue for a second-person account of interoception and social cognition. More specifically, they argue for the constitutive role of embodied social interactions in the development of interoceptive abilities and the ability for self-other differentiation. Furthermore, they review evidence to suggest that social interactions have a specific role in binding together subjective feeling states with the perception of the body and the (social) world. Along this line of reasoning, they refer to predictive coding and active inference frameworks of the ‘Bayesian brain’ function to suggest that basic inferential processes of embodied perception and action may be turned into more advanced forms of social understanding. We applaud Fotopoulou and Tsakiris for advocating a second-person account of social cognition and for connecting the predictive coding account of interoception to the dynamics of social interaction conceptually. We discuss these contributions in light of the existing literature and encourage the authors to be more precise about the computational processes, which they suggest may connect social interaction and interoception at the individual level. Furthermore, we describe a multilevel Bayesian framework that could be used to formally test a
proposal, such as the one discussed by the authors, but also allows for going beyond one Bayesian brain, by modeling interpersonal processes during social interaction.
Autism is a developmental condition, characterized by difficulties of social interaction and communication , as well as restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. Although several important conceptions have shed light on specific... more
Autism is a developmental condition, characterized by difficulties of social interaction and communication , as well as restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. Although several important conceptions have shed light on specific facets, there is still no consensus about a universal yet specific theory in terms of its underlying mechanisms. While some theories have exclusively focused on sensory aspects, others have emphasized social difficulties. However, sensory and social processes in autism might be interconnected to a higher degree than what has been traditionally thought. We propose that a mismatch in sensory abilities across individuals can lead to difficulties on a social, i.e. interpersonal level and vice versa. In this article, we, therefore, selectively review evidence indicating an interrelationship between perceptual and social difficulties in autism. Additionally, we link this body of research with studies, which investigate the mechanisms of action control in social contexts. By doing so, we highlight that autistic traits are also crucially related to differences in integration, anticipation and automatic responding to social cues, rather than a mere inability to register and learn from social cues. Importantly, such differences may only manifest themselves in sufficiently complex situations, such as real-life social interactions, where such processes are inextricably linked.
Research Interests:
In this paper, the robustness of appearance-based subspace learning techniques in geometrical transformations of the images is explored. A number of such techniques are presented and tested using four facial expression databases. A strong... more
In this paper, the robustness of appearance-based subspace learning techniques in geometrical transformations of the images is explored. A number of such techniques are presented and tested using four facial expression databases. A strong correlation between the recognition accuracy and the image registration error has been observed. Although it is common-knowledge that appearance-based methods are sensitive to image registration errors, there is no systematic experiment reported in the literature. As a result of these experiments, the training set enrichment with translated, scaled and rotated images is proposed for confronting the low robustness of these techniques in facial expression recognition. Moreover, person dependent training is proven to be much more accurate for facial expression recognition than generic learning.
ABSTRACT In this paper, the robustness of appearance-based, subspace learning techniques for facial expression recognition in geometrical transformations is explored. A plethora of facial expression recognition algorithms is presented and... more
ABSTRACT In this paper, the robustness of appearance-based, subspace learning techniques for facial expression recognition in geometrical transformations is explored. A plethora of facial expression recognition algorithms is presented and tested using three well-known facial expression databases. Although, it is common-knowledge that appearance based methods are sensitive to image registration errors, there is no systematic experiment reported in the literature and the problem is considered, a priori, solved. However, when it comes to automatic real-world applications, inaccuracies are expected, and a systematic preprocessing is needed. After a series of experiments we observed a strong correlation between the performance and the bounding box position. The mere investigation of the bounding box’s optimal characteristics is insufficient, due to the inherent constraints a real-world application imposes, and an alternative approach is demanded. Based on systematic experiments, the database enrichment with translated, scaled and rotated images is proposed for confronting the low robustness of subspace techniques for facial expression recognition.
Research Interests: