Abstract:In 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, which 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.Keywords: mentalizing network; mirror neuron system; social cognition from an interactor's point of view; social cognition from an observer's point of view; 'problem' of other minds; second-person neuroscience 2 "No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed."William James (1890), The Principles of Psychology.

Modern disciplines both reflect and perpetuate a basic dualism. The natural sciences deal with a `material world', abstracted from human concerns, while the social sciences have, in their turn, constructed a world of `agents' disconnected from material things. James Gibson's theory of affordances was an attempt to counter this deep schism in modern thought by emphasizing the material conditions of human activity. He came to see that psychology, as traditionally conceived, was itself a creation of dualistic thinking. Yet, Gibson failed to engage in a corresponding exploration of the sociality of the material. This paper examines the reasons why Gibson retained a dualism of the natural and socio-cultural in his theory; points to some of the ways in which the concept of affordances should be socialized; and, finally, raises the question: what would ecological psychology stand to lose if all affordances were social?

Typically, the research on the connotations of colors has presented isolated color samples to the participants, and/or restricted their responses to a limited set of alternatives (e.g., basic emotions). In the present study, the participants were asked to imagine their own examples of the target colors, thereby allowing the participants to select their own salient examples, including the context. In addition, a qualitative method, the semi-structured interview, was employed, giving them freedom to choose their own terms of description, and also identify issues which they themselves regarded as relevant. To a large extent, the results were consistent with previous research about the emotional significance and arousing effects of different colors. But this alternative approach also threw light upon more subtle connotations of colors, the multiple meanings of a single color, and also the participants' reasons for these connotations, ranging from individual experiences to cultural conventions and stereotypes.

A comparative developmental framework was used to determine whether mutual gaze is unique to humans and, if not, whether common mechanisms support the development of mutual gaze in chimpanzees and humans. Mother-infant chimpanzees engaged in approximately 17 instances of mutual gaze per hour. Mutual gaze occurred in positive, nonagonistic contexts. Mother-infant chimpanzees at a Japanese center exhibited significantly more mutual gaze than those at a center in the United States. Cradling and motor stimulation varied across groups. Time spent cradling infants was inversely related to mutual gaze. It is suggested that in primates, mutual engagement is supported via an interchangeability of tactile and visual modalities. The importance of mutual gaze is best understood within a perspective that embraces both cross-species and cross-cultural data.

This study explores the emergence of triadic interactions through the example of book sharing. As part of a naturalistic study, 10 infants were visited in their homes from 3–12 months. We report that (1) book sharing as a form of infant-caregiver-object interaction occurred from as early as 3 months. Using qualitative video analysis at a micro-level adapting methodologies from conversation and interaction analysis, we demonstrate that caregivers and infants practiced book sharing in a highly co-ordinated way, with caregivers carving out interaction units and shaping actions into action arcs and infants actively participating and co-ordinating their attention between mother and object from the beginning. We also (2) sketch a developmental trajectory of book sharing over the first year and show that the quality and dynamics of book sharing interactions underwent considerable change as the ecological situation was transformed in parallel with the infants' development of attention and motor skills. Social book sharing interactions reached an early peak at 6 months with the infants becoming more active in the coordination of attention between caregiver and book. From 7 to 9 months, the infants shifted their interest largely to solitary object exploration, in parallel with newly emerging postural and object manipulation skills, disrupting the social coordination and the cultural frame of book sharing. In the period from 9 to 12 months, social book interactions resurfaced, as infants began to effectively integrate manual object actions within the socially shared activity. In conclusion, to fully understand the development and qualities of triadic cultural activities such as book sharing, we need to look especially at the hitherto overlooked early period from 4 to 6 months, and investigate how shared spaces of meaning and action are structured together in and through interaction, creating the substrate for continuing cooperation and cultural learning.