Wolfgang Prinz

Stephen Hayne

The Integration Challenge, November 16-19, 1997, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Proceedings of the International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work

Miriam Beisert

Arvid Herwig

An overview of today's diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to action and the relationship of action and cognition. The emerging field of action science is characterized by a diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches that share the basic functional belief that evolution has optimized cognitive systems to serve the demands of action. This book brings together the constitutive approaches of action science in a single source, covering the relation of action to such cognitive functions as perception, attention, memory, and volition. Each chapter offers a tutorial-like description of a major line of inquiry, written by a leading scientist in the field. Taken together, the chapters reflect a dynamic and rapidly growing field and provide a forum for comparison and possible integration of approaches. After discussing core questions about how actions are controlled and learned, the book considers ecological approaches to action science; neurocogntive approaches to action understanding and attention; developmental approaches to action science; social actions, including imitation and joint action; and the relationships between action and the conceptual system (grounded cognition) and between volition and action. An emerging discipline depends on a rich and multifaceted supply of theoretical and methodological approaches. The diversity of perspectives offered in this book will serve as a guide for future explorations in action science. Contributors Lawrence W. Barsalou, Miriam Beisert, Valerian Chambon, Thomas Goschke, Patrick Haggard, Arvid Herwig, Herbert Heuer, Cecilia Heyes, Bernhard Hommel, Glyn W. Humphreys, Richard B. Ivry, Markus Kiefer, Günther Knoblich, Sally A. Linkenauger, Janeen D. Loehr, Peter J. Marshall, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Wolfgang Prinz, Dennis R. Proffitt, Giacomo Rizzolatti, David A. Rosenbaum, Natalie Sebanz, Corrado Sinigaglia, Sandra Sülzenbrück, Jordan A. Taylor, Michael T. Turvey, Claes von Hofsten, Rebecca A. Williamson

Foundations of an Emerging Discipline

Action Science

Andrew N. Meltzoff

Imitation guides the behaviour of a range of species. Scientific advances in the study of imitation at multiple levels from neurons to behaviour have far-reaching implications for cognitive science, neuroscience, and evolutionary and developmental psychology. This volume, first published in 2002, provides a summary of the research on imitation in both Europe and America, including work on infants, adults, and nonhuman primates, with speculations about robotics. A special feature of the book is that it provides a concrete instance of the links between developmental psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. It showcases how an interdisciplinary approach to imitation can illuminate long-standing problems in the brain sciences, including consciousness, self, perception-action coding, theory of mind, and intersubjectivity. The book addresses what it means to be human and how we get that way.

Development, Evolution and Brain Bases

The Imitative Mind

Yvonne Rogers

Volker Wulf

Matthias Jarke

K. Schmidt

Schmidt and Bannon (1992) introduced the concept of common information space by contrasting it with technical conceptions of shared information: Cooperative work is not facilitated simply by the provisioning of a shared database, but rather requires the active construction by the participants of a common information space where the meanings of the shared objects are debated and resolved, at least locally and temporarily. (Schmidt and Bannon, p. 22) A CIS, then, encompasses not only the information but also the practices by which actors establish its meaning for their collective work. These negotiated understandings of the information are as important as the availability of the information itself: The actors must attempt to jointly construct a common information space which goes beyond their individual personal information spaces. . . . The common information space is negotiated and established by the actors involved. (Schmidt and Bannon, p. 28) This is not to suggest that actors’ understandings of the information are identical; they are simply “common” enough to coordinate the work. People understand how the information is relevant for their own work. Therefore, individuals engaged in different activities will have different perspectives on the same information. The work of maintaining the common information space is the work that it takes to balance and accommodate these different perspectives. A “bug” report in software development is a simple example. Software developers and quality assurance personnel have access to the same bug report information. However, access to information is not sufficient to coordinate their work.

ECSCW 2001

A novel proposal that the cognitive architecture for volition and cognition arises from particular kinds of social interaction and communication. In Open Minds, Wolfgang Prinz offers the novel claim that agency and intentionality are first perceived and understood in others, and that it is only through practices and discourses of social mirroring that individuals come to apply these features to themselves and to shape their architectures for volition and cognition accordingly. Developing a (social science) constructive approach within a (cognitive science) representational framework, Prinz argues that the architectures for agency (volition) and intentionality (cognition) arise from particular kinds of social interaction and communication. Rather than working as closed, individual systems, our minds operate in ways that are fundamentally open to other minds. Prinz describes mirror systems and mirror games, particular kinds of representational mechanisms and social games that provide tools for aligning closed individual minds with other minds. He maps the formation of an architecture for volition, addressing issues of agency and intention-based top-down control, then outlines the ways the same basic ideas can be applied to an architecture for cognition, helping to solve basic issues of subjectivity and intentionality. Addressing the reality and efficacy of such social artifacts as autonomy and free will, Prinz contends that our beliefs about minds are not just beliefs about their workings but powerful tools for making them work as we believe. It is through our beliefs that our minds work in a particular way that we actually make them work in that way.

The Social Making of Agency and Intentionality

Open Minds

Wolfgang Prinz

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