The very first interactions among humans are skin-to-skin interaction and defining the self-boundaries. Since the child cannot provide autonomously to their physical needs, social mediation appears as the necessary condition to successfully regulate the exchanges with the environment. The sensorimotor and perceptual experiences, mediated by the caregiver, are continuously updated by the child, and used to predict future events and social contexts. Predicting social contexts for humans entails not only considering physical and tangible signals but, most of the time, it means forming accurate predictions on the other’s mental state. The ability to interpret the other’s emotion, desire, and perception (implicit Theory of Mind -ToM-) is present before the third year of life, it is grounded in embodied practices and represents the precursor to a more developed ability to assume the other’s perspective (explicit Theory of Mind -ToM-).
As children get older, interpreting others’ behavior becomes a very sophisticated capability based on the socio-cognitive understanding and the implicit psychological knowledge shared by the actors. If at earlier stages of life, the psychological proximity overlaps with the physical proximity; later, thanks to the interiorization of the other’s mental state, we are endowed with the capability of being mentally connected without the bodily presence. The progressive detachment of social interactions from physicality finds the most emblematic expression in digital communication. The latter allows involvement in social interactions without the physicality and favors the emergence of “a sense of closeness” detached from Spatio-temporal constraints. Thus, two different dimensions: i) the psychological development of the individual, and ii) the collective cultural/technological advances, conflate in fostering more “abstract” and “disembodied” social interactions where the implicit shared cultural psychological knowledge suffices for a deep social attunement. Interacting without physicality might affect the verbal communication styles, the perceived interpersonal distance, and the self-other processes during social exchanges.
Research themes for this Research Topic concern theoretical and experimental contributions in, but not limited to: self-other distinction and processes in infancy and adulthood; social touch in neurotypical and neuroatypical population; bodily and verbal language; Theory of Mind (ToM); bodily and narrative self; sensorimotor and virtual interactions; perspective taking abilities in virtual platforms; interpersonal and psychological distance in real or virtual contexts; interactive paradigms to investigate social exchanges in real or virtual contexts; processes of symbolization and abstraction in social interactions during infancy and adulthood; predictive and inferential processes in conversation as a function of the context.
The very first interactions among humans are skin-to-skin interaction and defining the self-boundaries. Since the child cannot provide autonomously to their physical needs, social mediation appears as the necessary condition to successfully regulate the exchanges with the environment. The sensorimotor and perceptual experiences, mediated by the caregiver, are continuously updated by the child, and used to predict future events and social contexts. Predicting social contexts for humans entails not only considering physical and tangible signals but, most of the time, it means forming accurate predictions on the other’s mental state. The ability to interpret the other’s emotion, desire, and perception (implicit Theory of Mind -ToM-) is present before the third year of life, it is grounded in embodied practices and represents the precursor to a more developed ability to assume the other’s perspective (explicit Theory of Mind -ToM-).
As children get older, interpreting others’ behavior becomes a very sophisticated capability based on the socio-cognitive understanding and the implicit psychological knowledge shared by the actors. If at earlier stages of life, the psychological proximity overlaps with the physical proximity; later, thanks to the interiorization of the other’s mental state, we are endowed with the capability of being mentally connected without the bodily presence. The progressive detachment of social interactions from physicality finds the most emblematic expression in digital communication. The latter allows involvement in social interactions without the physicality and favors the emergence of “a sense of closeness” detached from Spatio-temporal constraints. Thus, two different dimensions: i) the psychological development of the individual, and ii) the collective cultural/technological advances, conflate in fostering more “abstract” and “disembodied” social interactions where the implicit shared cultural psychological knowledge suffices for a deep social attunement. Interacting without physicality might affect the verbal communication styles, the perceived interpersonal distance, and the self-other processes during social exchanges.
Research themes for this Research Topic concern theoretical and experimental contributions in, but not limited to: self-other distinction and processes in infancy and adulthood; social touch in neurotypical and neuroatypical population; bodily and verbal language; Theory of Mind (ToM); bodily and narrative self; sensorimotor and virtual interactions; perspective taking abilities in virtual platforms; interpersonal and psychological distance in real or virtual contexts; interactive paradigms to investigate social exchanges in real or virtual contexts; processes of symbolization and abstraction in social interactions during infancy and adulthood; predictive and inferential processes in conversation as a function of the context.
