Event overview
020 7078 5048
Goldsmiths Whitehead Lecture by Professor Ezequiel di Paolo, Research Professor at Ikerbasque, the Basque Foundation for Science
Recent empirical work in social cognition, both in psychology and neuroscience, has gradually started to focus on situations involving various degrees of social interaction. Such situations are notably difficult to manage in controlled settings. This is one reason behind the prevailing attention to individual cognitive mechanisms for social understanding. However, the "experimental quarantine" (Daniel Richardson's phrase) is being lifted and the focus of empirical studies is increasingly concerned with individuals in interactive situations (e.g. joint action). In this talk, I argue that this move must be followed by a lifting of the "conceptual quarantine", which still in effect and puts the weight of social cognitive performance solely on individual mechanisms (e.g. mirror neurons). This perspective is traceable to the methodological individualism prevalent in cognitive science in general. It is yet another reason that accounts for the widespread conception of social cognition as a detached observation of social situations and exceptionally as a form of participation. The properties of the interaction dynamics are relegated to the role of informational input to individual mechanisms.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 16 Feb 2011 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
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