Socializing Sensorimotor Contingencies

Abstract

The aim of this review is to highlight the idea of grounding social cognition in sensorimotor interactions shared across agents. We discuss an action-oriented account that emerges from a broader interpretation of the concept of sensorimotor contingencies. We suggest that dynamic informational and sensorimotor coupling across agents can mediate the deployment of action-effect contingencies in social contexts. We propose this concept of socializing sensorimotor contingencies (socSMCs) as a shared framework of analysis for processes within and across brains and bodies, and their physical and social environments. In doing so, we integrate insights from different fields, including neuroscience, psychology, and research on human-robot interaction. We review studies on dynamic embodied interaction and highlight empirical findings that suggest an important role of sensorimotor and informational entrainment in social contexts. Furthermore, we discuss links to closely related concepts, such as enactivism, models of coordination dynamics and others, and clarify differences to approaches that focus on mentalizing and high-level cognitive representations. Moreover, we consider conceptual implications of rethinking cognition as social sensorimotor coupling. The insight that social cognitive phenomena like joint attention, mutual trust or empathy rely heavily on the informational and sensorimotor coupling between agents may provide novel remedies for people with disturbed social cognition and for situations of disturbed social interaction. Furthermore, our proposal has potential applications in the field of human-robot interaction where socSMCs principles might lead to more natural and intuitive interfaces for human users.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; coordination dynamics; coupling; human–robot interaction; joint action; prediction; sensorimotor contingencies.

FIGURE 1

Three hypothesized levels of SMCs in social interaction: (Top) Check SMCs may be mediated by unidirectional coupling between two agents (left) or from one person to other interacting agents (right). (Middle) Sync SMCs involve reciprocal coupling between two or more agents. (Bottom) Unite SMCs are conceived as emergent higher-order correlation patterns in the group dynamics.

FIGURE 2

Social interactions may involve proximal and distal types of SMCs. (A) Proximal sensorimotor coupling through direct physical contact, involving haptic sensing and kinesthesia. (B) Distal sensorimotor coupling based on distance senses including vision and audition to feed action-perception loops. Modified from Hasson et al. (2012).

FIGURE 3

Coordination dynamics in social interaction. (A) Experimental setup. Participants were seated opposite to each other and instructed to move their index finger up and down continuously, either with eyes open or eyes closed in separate periods. Importantly, no specific instructions about the coordination of the finger movements were given. (B) (Top) Relative phase of the finger movements, indicating synchrony when participants had their eyes open and were viewing each other’s movements. (Middle) Occurrence of relative phase lags of movements. With eyes open, zero phase lag dominated the distribution. (Bottom) With eyes open, participants adopted the same movement frequency; of note, movement frequencies remained similar when participants closed their eyes again. Modified from Oullier et al. (2008).

FIGURE 4

Modulation of brain signals by joint action. (A) Experimental setup. Participants were seated in two separate MEG systems and instructed to perform rhythmic precision-grip-like movements in synchrony with their partner, either leading or following the other’s movement. Example movement traces (red, blue) are shown at the bottom, indicating similar movement with slight delay between the participants. (B) Modulation of alpha- and beta-band power by the phase of the hand movement in the two conditions. Modulations occurred over central areas and, for beta power, also over visual cortex. Significant differences between the leader and follower conditions (right) occurred only for beta-band power recorded from visual areas. This role-specific modulation of brain activity might be reflecting the need for the follower to coordinate own proprioceptive signals with the visual feedback about the movement of the leading participant. (C) Source space projection of the results shown in panel (B). Power modulations are observed in sensorimotor cortex as well as, in the follower condition, in visual cortex. Modified from Zhou et al. (2016).