65
G. Riva, M.T. Anguera, B.K. Wiederhold and F. Mantovani (Eds.)
From Communication to Presence: Cognition, Emotions and Culture towards the
Ultimate Communicative Experience. Festschrift in honor of Luigi Anolli
IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2006, (c) All rights reserved - http://www.emergingcommunication.com
3.5 The Missing Links: Presence and Social Presence
After this long analysis of the recent outcomes of the social and cognitive
neuroscience it is possible to underline an overall scenario: our conceptual system
dynamically produces contextualized representations (simulations) that support
situated action in different situations. This is allowed by a common coding - the
motor code - shared by perception, action and concepts.
On one side, the vision of an object immediately activates the appropriate hand
shape for using it: seeing a red apple activates a precision grip for grasping and
turning. On the other side, thinking an apple produces the simulation of an action
related to the apple in a specific context of use.
This common coding also allows the subject for natively recognizing actions done
by other beings within the phenomenological contents. Further, the subject predicts
the outcome of the identified action using the same simulation mechanism described
above: seeing someone grasping an apple produces a contextualized simulation of the
full course of the action.
However, this picture has some holes in it: if perception, action and concepts share
the same language how can we differentiate between them. In particular how can we
distinguish between a perceived action, a planned or an executed one?
More, even if imitation has frequently been proposed as the central mechanism
mediating the reproduction, spread, intergenerational transmission and stabilization
of human cultural forms, our imitation is selective. How and why do we imitate?
Finally, developmental psychology clearly shows that our simulative abilities are not
the same in the different phases of our life. How and why do they evolve?
In this chapter we suggest that a psychology of presence is a possible answer to
these questions. In our vision “Presence” and “Social Presence” have a simple but
critical role in our everyday experience: the control of agency and social interaction
through the unconscious separation of both “internal” and “external”, and “self” and
“other”.
Below are summarized the key ideas behind this vision that will be deepened in the
next paragraphs:
o We claim that human beings at birth have “naked intentionality”: they have
the direct ability of recognizing intentions but lack self-identification. As
suggested by Jeannerod and Pacherie [90] in this condition intentions are
“naked”, unattributed: the infant recognizes an intention without being aware
of whose intention it is. Different neurological disorders - like the echopraxia,
or the anarchic hand - support the existence of naked intentionality [30, 90].
o The need for self-identification and attribution requires a specific
neuropsychological process (presence-as-process) embedding sensory-referred
properties into an internal functional space [91]. This is achieved by separating
both “self” and “other,” and “internal” and “external” within different kinds of
afferent and efferent motor codes. The presence-as-process can be divided in
three different layers/subprocesses phylogenetically different, and strictly
related to the evolution of self: proto presence (self vs. non self), core presence
(self vs. present external world), and extended presence (self relative to
present external world).