From Communication to Presence: Cognition, Emotions and Culture towards the Ultimate Communicative Experience. Festschrift in honor of Luigi Anolli

66

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

o The outcome of this process is the presence-as-feeling: the non mediated
perception that an intention is being enacted successfully. This feeling is
experienced indirectly (prereflexively) by the self through the characteristics
of action and experience. In fact the self perceives directly only the variations
in the level of presence-as-feeling: breakdowns and optimal experiences
(flow).

o The development of the self allowed by presence leads to the recognition of
the “other” as “another intentional self”. This requires a specific
neuropsychological process (social-presence-as-process) tracking the behavior
of the other to understand the characteristics (content and motive) of his/her
intentions. This process is based on covert imitation: an automatic action
emulator, tracking the behavior of other subjects in real time to generate
perceptual predictions [71, 83]. The social-presence-as-process can be divided
in three different layers/subprocesses phylogenetically different, but mutually
inclusive: proto social presence (the intention of the other is toward the self),
joint social presence (the self and the other have the same intentional focus ),
shared social presence (the self and the other share the same intention).

o The outcome of this process is the social-presence-as-feeling: the non
mediated perception of other’s intentions. It is not separated by the experience
of the subject but it is related to the quality of his/her social interactions. In
fact, a higher level of social-presence-as-feeling is experienced prereflexively
as empathy and communicative synchrony. The self experiences reflexively
the social-presence-as-feeling only when the quality of his experience is
modified during a social interaction. More in detail, the self perceives directly
only the variations of social-presence-as-feeling: intentional opacity and
attunement/empathy.

o Presence and social presence converge within the social and cooperative
activities. Specifically, these activities are created and governed by a
reciprocal intentional game between the communicators regulated by the level
of presence and social presence experienced by the interactants [92]: the
display and ostension of a given intention by the speaker ("intentionalization"
process) and the ascription and attribution of a certain intention to him/her by
the addressee ("re-intentionalization" process).

o Another important role of presence and social presence is related to the
processes of internalization and externalization. As suggested by Vygotsky
[93, 94], on one side external activity transforms internal cognitive processes
(internalization). On the other side, knowledge structures and moments of
internal activity organize and regulate external social processes
(externalization). We claim that the processes of internalization and
externalization are influenced by the experienced presence and social presence
in actions and interactions: the more is the presence and social presence, the
more is the possibility that the contents of the action/interaction will be
internalized/externalized.

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