f & F 2012 extracts

Learning & cooperation :

Taking a comparative approach

This comparative approach to social cognition can identify processes in common

across species. It can also help identifying the nature of those processes that are

unique or at least dramatically more highly developed in humans.

We passionately believe that social cognitive neuroscience needs to break away from

a restrictive phrenology that links circumscribed brain regions to underspecified

social processes.

 a) Implicit 

 ( observation, imitation) place, objects, actions:

gaze is important

perception of biological motion

animacy (is subserved by a circumscribed brain region in the superiortemporal sulcus (pSTS Puce & Perrett 2003) and the ability to distinguish this motion from other kinds of motion is exquisitely tuned.)

 Agents also typically have faces and their eyes give cues to what they are interested in. (A posterior region of STS is specialised for analysis of facial movements, while invariant aspects of faces are analysed in the fusiform gyrus (FFA Haxby et al 2000,)

Another important cue to agency is contingent responding. Human infants and adultsalike are likely to treat a shapeless object as being animate if the object moves, ormakes noises that are contingent on their own actions (Johnson 2003).

Alignment.

A necessary consequence of learning by observation is the formation

of behavioural similarity across a population. This is most obviously the case when

learning about actions. When we interact with others we often automatically imitate

their behaviour (Chartrand & Bargh 1999). In the case of verbal interactions this

alignment can occur at many levels. During a productive discourse, speakers will

automatically tend to align their posture, their speech rate, their choice of words and

their syntactic forms (Garrod & Pickering 2009).

Emotional contagion

Perceiving an emotional response of another person elicits the same emotional

response in ourselves. This is also called emotional contagion and allows us to share

the emotion of the person we are observing (de Vignemont & Singer 2006), a

prerequisite of empathy. Emotional contagion supplies a basic conditioning

mechanism through which we can learn from others on the basis of their emotional

expressions. This process, even though likely underwritten by a general mechanism of

association learning, has some claim to be a specifically social process, having social

content and being solely in the service of social cognition.

Costs and benefits of observational learning

1because demonstrators will selectively perform the actions that

they have found to be most beneficial for themselves, they effectively and

inadvertently act as a filter to provide the information that is most useful for an

observer. Copying is a highly adaptive means of gaining knowledge (Rendell et al

2010)

2. Prosocial effects of copying. While learning from observation can serve purely

short-term self-interest. Contagion and copying can also bias us towards the long-term

interests of our group (which also serves self-interest). This effect is seen in

experiments, which reveal subtle effects of copying. If we are covertly mimicked, we

tend to like that person. Furthermore, we become more helpful to people in general

(van Baaren et al 2004). Similar effects have been demonstrated in monkeys, who are

more likely to approach and share food with an imitator (Paukner et al 2009). These

effects are likely to be unconscious. In contrast, when people are aware that they are

being imitated (see Bailenson et al 2008), they experience high levels of discomfort

and thus the prosocial effects do not occur. At the neural level there is evidence that

mimicry is rewarding. When we observe someone else being imitated activity

increases in reward-related regions such as vmPFC (Kühn et al 2010). When others

make the same choice that we have just made merely on the basis of ‘liking’, then

reward areas of the brain are activated just as when we received the desired object

ourselves (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al 2010). Thus, the reward in being endorsed by

others may result in reinforcing group oriented behaviour and conformity.

Explicit

 deliberate communication, processes that enable individuals to understand one another with a high degree of precision. ( ? uniquely human) (see Apperly & Butterfill 2009 fora discussion of the two forms of mentalizing). Explicit mentalizing is closely linked to meta-cognition: the ability to reflect on one’s action

and to think about one’s own thoughts.

Conclusions

In this essay we have emphasised the importance of comparisons of different species

and the use of an evolutionary framework for understanding social interaction. Much

of human social behaviour derives from the same range of cognitive processes that

can also be seen in other social animals.

What then in social cognition is specific to human beings? First, through language

humans have the means of creating processes that are explicit. Second, humans, in

comparison to other species, have a much greater ability to exert top-down control

over automatic processes. This is particularly important when there is competition

between different components of social cognition. Third, humans have the

extraordinary ability to reflect upon their own mental states. This is a prime example

of meta-cognition, which may well lie at the heart of conscious awareness

Krach et al (2008)

Krach, S., Hegel, F., Sagerer, G, Binkofski, F., & Kircher, T (2008)

Can machines think? Interaction and Perspective taking with robots investigated via fMRI

PloS ONE 3, 7, e2597

A key question for robotic dialogue design is ' how to communicate the internal system state of a robot in a way that is understandable to the human user'

 Research question

do we attribute human like properties to machines? Even those that look and/or behave like humans?

Specifically

Activity of right TPC and medial Pre frontal cortex is hypothesised to linearly increase with the perceived grade of human likeness of the interactants

Studies investigating TOM with fMRI 

•   usually asked participants to take the perspective of various stimuli types, cartoon characters, persons on a photograph, ie ps asked to explicitly evaluate TOM in a highly controlled context

•   More recently used reciprocal interactive games between human participants  in order to access a more implicit perspective

Design

Highly interactive game scenario

4 opponents, ' all hypothetically differing liberally in the perceived grade of human likeness. 'Human likeness was operationalised by increasing the degree of anthropomorphism and embodiment'. (  Embodiment refers to the need for physicality in attribution processes, anthropomorphism as a way of explaining things in a way that we understand). It might be that a robot gives a greater sense of presence especially if it engages with the shared environment. Robots anthropomorphise more easily when they more like humans they are interacting with

•   A computer CP no human shape, no perceivable button pressing

•   A functionally designed Lego robot FR no human shape, button pressing with artificial hands

•   An anthropomorphic model. Human like shape, button pressing with human like hands

•   Human partner HP human shape, button pressing with human like hands

Video of the image beamed into the scanner. P was in fact always playing with the same confederate but did not know that assumed opponent was as per video image

Findings

' as a prerequisite to derive meaningful interpretations of the behavioural and functional imaging data on-line response behaviour and questionnaires indicated that all 20 participants

•   believed in the setting I.e they believed to really interact with the partners online'

•   ' neither reaction times nor button passing differed significantly between conditions'

•   'Overall, participants played rather competitive with a ratio of around 60/40 (competitive/cooperative) decisions, irrespective of the partner being played'

•   Debriefing questionnaire

•   Fun Intelligence CP

•   Competiveness CP

•   Human likeness and sympathy  rated only for AR, FR

fMRI findings

' participants increasingly engaged cortical regions corresponding to the classical TOM network the more respective games partners exhibited human like features'

TPJ - each comparison

MPFC pro innately dorsal - AP & HP only

Implications and conclusions

' To summarise the present study provides first evidence that the degree of human-likeness of a counterpart modulates its perception, influences the communication and behaviour, biases mental state attribution, and, finally , affects cortical activity during such interactions'

Shen et al (2009) notes

Shen, L., Wang, M., & Shen, R. (2009)

Affective e-Learning using "emotional" data to improve learning in pervasive learning environment

Educational technology & Society, 12, 2, 176-189

p 176 'Pervasive leaning is supported by wireless communication and wearable computing'

p 176, 177 Affective computing ' computer methods that are related to, derived from or deliberately designed to influence emotions. It involves two areas: emotion synthesis used to artificially imitate some of the physical or behavioural explosions associated with affective states , and emotion analysis which is often employed in decision making for interactive systems' e.g. synthesis (robots) analysis (monitoring).

 Theoretical background

' according to Fowler (1997) study, the relationship between learning performance and the arousal is a type of inverted -U curve, and people learn best when their emotions are at a moderate optimal arousal level'

Circumflex model (arousal, valence)

OCC model - cognitive appraisal model for emotions. 22 emotion categories to goals, relevant events, actions of an agent, attitudes of attractive or unattractive objects..........

Kort's Learning spiral model a state of evolution model Kort, Reilly and Picard (2001). p 180 proposed a four quadrant learning spiral model in which emotions change while the learner moves through quadrants and up the spiral. In quadrant 1 the learner  is experiencing positive affect and constructing knowledge. At this point, the learner is working through the material with ease. Once discrepancies arise between the learner's knowledge he moves to Q2 which consists of constructive knowledge and negative effect. Affect as  confusion. If this is not resolved learner may move to Q3 , frustration. If any misconceptions get discarded then moves onto Q4 'unlearning and positive affect' then propelled back to Q1 looking for new learning.

In Affective computing detection rates for non verbal cues is about 80%  therefore

' because physiological signals are more difficult to conceal or manipulate ....... And potentially less intrusive to text and measure, they are a more reliable representation of inner feelings '

Affective e-Learning model

Use two sets of data

1.     Collected Biophysical data HR, Skin conductance, BP, EEG. Incorporates elements from Circumflex - to describe biophysical in terms of  learner's emotions ( interest,  engagement, confusion, frustration, boredom, hopefulness, satisfaction, disappointment)

2.  OCC cognitive appraisal model for emotions.  considers contextual information of the learner and the learning setting. Infers learner emotions from this data

So in this model 1 represents the emotional states and 2 the appraisal mechanism . Assumes appraisal leads to emotions which in turn are reflected biologically. A Baysian method was used to model the relations between the emotional states and their causal variables.

Method

One subject, 20 trials, 40 minute biophysical recordings while student studies for examination in otherwise ,normal context. Self paced learning

EEG 3 electrodes, PCz, A1,A2.

Proposed Outcome of the system:  generates responses to the learner p181 ' based on his/her emotional states, cognitive abilities, and learning goals.'

 This model can also be used to customise the interaction between the learner and learning system, to predict learner responses to system behaviour, and to predict learner's future interaction with the learning system'

Results

Tested user satisfaction by comparing the number of  user adjustments required for the 'emotion aware' system v  a 'non emotion aware system' latter required more users interventions

Adding EEG moved best classification rate ( for emotional involvement) from 68.1 to 86.3%. P 187 ' this suggests the close relationship between brain waves and emotions during learning'

Meltzoff et al (2009) notes

Meltzoff, A.N., Kuhl, P.K., Movellan, J., and Sejnowski., T.J. (2009)

Foundations for a new science of learning

Science, 325, 284-288

p284 'Human learning and cultural evolution are supported by a paradoxical adaptation. We are born immature. During the first year of life , the brain of an infant is teeming with structural activity' with sensory processes developing before higher activity'

'Three principles are emerging from cross-disciplinary work in psychology, neuroscience, machine learning, and education, contributing to a new science of learning'  and, in particular, are useful for explaining,, language and social understanding.

1.    Learning is computational, implicit

2.    Learning is social, implicit

3.    Learning  is supported by brain circuits linking perception and action

1. Learning is computational

' infants and young children possess powerful computational skills that allow them to automatically infer structural models of their environment from the statistical patterns they experience' eg 'before they are three, children use frequency distributions to learn which phonetic units distinguish words in their native language' p 285 ' Statistical regularities and co variations in the world thus provide a richer source of information than previously thought' and the learning    running around these regularities is implicit. ' Learning from probabilistic input provides an alternative to Skinnerian reinforcement learning and Chomskian nativist accounts' of learning

2. Learning is social

p285 'Children do not compute statistics indiscriminately. Social cues highlight what and when to learn'  young infants 'more readily learn and enact an event when it is produced by a person than be an inanimate device. Machine learning studies show that systematically increasing a robot's social-like behaviours and contingent responsivity elevates young children's willingness to connect with it and learn from it'

3. Learning is supported by brain circuits linking perception and action

' Human social and language learning are supported by neural-cognitive systems that link the actions of self and other.'  The brain areas responsible for initiation of movement and its action overlap. ' Social learning, imitation, and sensorimotor experience may initially generate, as well as modify and refine, shared neural circuitry for perception and action'.  KRO to what extent and what is the nature of 'the close coupling and attunement between self and other, which is the hallmark of seamless social communication and interaction'

Social learning and understanding

Three social skills are foundational

1.    Imitation

2.    Shared attention

3.    Empathy and social emotions

 Imitation

'Learning by observing and imitating experts in the culture is a powerful social learning mechanism' ' Imitation if faster than individual discovery and safer than trial and error learning' ' Children can use third person information ( observation of others) to create first person knowledge. This is an accelerator for learning: Instead of having to work out causal relationships themselves children can learn from watching experts' ' Imitative learning is valuable because the behavioural actions of others "like me" serve as a proxy for one's own' ' Children do not slavishly duplicate what they see but reenact a person's goals and intentions' ie ' they produce the goal that the adult was striving to achieve, not the unsuccessful attempts. Children choose whom, when, and what to imitate and seamlessly mix imitation and self discovery to solve novel problems'  attempts in robotics to emulate infant imitation include direct (input-action) and more recently goal based approaches .

 Shared attention

'Social learning is facilitated when people share attention. Shared attention to the same object or event provides a common ground for communication and teaching. An early component of shared attention is gaze following' experimental evidence to show that ' we project our own experience onto others'. P286  ' The ability to interpret the behaviour the behaviour and experience of others by using oneself as a model is a highly effective learning strategy that may be unique to human........It would be useful if this could be exploited in machine  learning'

Empathy and social emotions

' The capacity to feel and regulate emotions is critical '  ' In humans, many affective       processes are uniquely social'. Children will even help and comfort a social robot that was crying Tanaka,Cicourel,Movellan, 2007) 'Brain imaging studies in adults show an overlap in the neural systems activated when people  receive a painful stimulus themselves or perceive that another person is in pain  Hein & Singer (2008) These neural reactions are modulated by cultural experience, training, and perceived similarity between self and other Hein & Singer (2008)

Language Learning  - as shedding light on the interaction between computational learning, social facilitation of learning, and shared neural circuitry for perception and production.

Evidence to show that developing infants pick up the statistical regularities of a language leading to neural commitment. ' However, experiments also show that the computations involved in language learning are "gated" by social processes (Kuhl, 2007). In foreign language learning experiments, social interaction strongly influenced infants' statistical learning. Infants exposed to a foreign language at 9 months learn rapidly, but only when experiencing the new language during social interchanges with other humans. 'Temporal contingencies may be critical'.

Idea of neural commitment

A similar pattern , ' passerine  birds learn conspecific song by listening to and imitating adult birds' ' In birds, as in humans, a social context enhances vocal learning'.

Sanger et al (2011) notes

Sanger, Lindenberger, Muller (2011)

Interactive brains, social minds

Communicative & Integrative Biology

P 655  difficult ' studying the complexities of social interaction in tightly controlled experimental settings' p 661 'real-life social interactions are spontaneous, reciprocal , and multimodal, and thereby pose great challenges to experimental design and the ability to draw causal inferences'

Definitions

Social cognition ' the mechanism that allows us to understand others '

Mentalizing , theory of mind ' the ability to represent other people's mental states (Frith & Frith (2002) as well as the knowledge needed for interaction and formation of social relationships

Social interaction is more narrowly defined 'turn taking among active, autonomous agents who follow social rules and control their action and reactions according to. Their perceptions'

Joint action ' any form of coordinated action bringing about change'

Coordination ' non accidental correlation between the behaviours of two or more systems that are in sustained coupling, or have been coupled in the past, or have been coupled to another, common system'

Interpersonal action coordination  occurs in ' the context of joint actions and coordination' note synchronisation of speech and movements does not qualify. '

Interpersonal action coordination

Discussed in terms of musicians and dancers but could apply to collaborative learning, especially face-to-face.

'interpersonal action coordination requires the perception,representation and anticipation of one's own and  partner actions'

Joint goal, (task) required. The task determines individual intentions (which may be very different especially in learning contexts)

Investigating the neural basis of social interaction

P 656 'Currently little is known about the brain areas that are involved and the neural mechanisms that implements interpersonally coordinated behaviour'

Designs and methods

Collectively the following  implicate fronto parietal areas

Focus

•    Agency

•   Cooperation &competition

•   Intentional stance

•   Self relevance and interpretation of relational stance

Single subjects intact interacting with

•   Computers

•   Virtual counterparts

•   Real counterparts

Methods and techniques involving  EEG

•   Formation of shared action representations' (40)

•   Movement coordination (41)

•   Different forms of action coordination (50,51)

Conclusions and outlook

P 661

' reconcile the dynamics of e phenomenon with the requirements of experimental control'

' there is a need for studies that assess the target behaviour as well as the behavioural cues exchanged between  interaction partners in real time, and relate these measures to neural synchronisation within and between brains' ....  ' Interbrain synchronisation during interpersonal interaction (KRO how important is this online?) coordination clearly depends on multimodal perceptual cues ( e.g. Gestures, facial expressions, movements), but the relation between these cues and Interbrain synchronisation is rarely assessed or analysed' 

Saxe (2006) notes

Rebecca Saxe (2006)

Uniquely human social cognition

Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16, 235-239

Foundational capacities are the only aspects  of human social cognition  that are not uniquely human they are shared by preverbal infants , apes and monkeys

•   Recognise co specifics

•   Monitor others' actions

•   Engage in contingent interactions

•   Understand  basic mental states such as goals and actions (apes and preverbal children (see also  Meltzoff & Decety, 2003) for preverbal children)

What aspects of social cognition are uniquely human?

However, apes and monkeys  and very young infants do not have the following two social cognition  competences

 1. Theory of Mind ( Temporo-parietal junction TPJ)

P235 being able to ' distinguish between the object of a mental state

 what a person's mental state is about , the state of affairs to which the belief or perceptions refers) and the content. (How that state of affairs is represented, what the person believes or perceives to be true of it). KRO for project work the object, state of affairs would be  the task and the understanding that group cohesion needs to be maintained in order to make progress with the task. 'Command of this distinction enables older children to understand how people's mental representations of the world might differ from the way the world really is' KRO or that it differs from their own understanding of it   I.e. Saxe ( shown as italics) would extend the 2003 definition by Meltzoff & Decety ' To become a sophisticated mentalist one needs to analyse both the similarities and differences between one's own states and those of others' as they refer to an object,state of affairs

2.  Joint attention (medial prefrontal cortex MPFC) - mental representations with a three place (triadic) structure ie triadic social relations

'This second unique component of human social cognition requires an individual to represent  triadic relations 'You, and Me, collaboratively looking at, working on or talking about This'

Saxe is discussing these theories  in terms of the physical presence of an intentional actor.

Foundational stages are the first steps when reasoning about others' actions.

1.  Detecting the presence of an intentional actor

 (Extrastriate body area (EBA)). A region in bilateral occipito-temporal cortex that shows a selective response to human bodies and body parts, relative to other familiar objects. Right specialised for perceiving others). Verbal stories about the human body do not suffice.

2. Interpreting the motions of a human body in terms of the person's goals

Posterior Superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), usually right lateralised, recruited both during direct observation and indirect observation of the results of the action.  I.e. it represents the relationship between a movement and its context.  For simple goal directed actions, the response in r. pSTS is increased when there is a mismatch between the action and the target an an action

Representing the specific (representational) contents of mental states such as beliefs

Temporo-parietal junction , adjacent to but distinct from the pSTS

EP236 ' the BOLD response in this region is high when subjects read stories that describe a character's true or false beliefs but low during stories containing other information about a character, including appearance, cultural background, or even internal, subjective sensations .....that have no representational content'

 this region is also recruited 'for determining how the spatial relations between two objects would appear from a character's point of view versus from the subjects's own position'

3.  Reasoning (the sophisticated end of social cognition) about mental states

Recent imaging work has reconstructed the knowledge base on this ie MPFC not the unique neural substrate of reasoning about mental states

 p 236 ' No part of the MPFC is specifically recruited for reasoning about representational mental states' ( ie beliefs) 'instead subregions are implicated in distinct components of social cognition'  Two areas involved ventral and dorsal, distinctiveness supported by double dissociations (neuropsychological evidence)

Ventral MPFC affective empathy and sympathy (supported by evidence collected using a variety of method)

Saxe  p 237 definition of emotional empathy  based on Blair 'the cognitive and neural processes that produce a congruent emotion in the observer in response to others' directly perceived emotional displays or to descriptions of others' emotion-laden experiences'

Dorsal MPFC  implicated in ' shared or collaborative attention and goals, that is triadic relations between Me, You and This