30/11/05 ISS, The University of Nottingham
Recent work in the emerging discipline of social neuroscience seeks to explore the biological and cognitive basis of human social interaction. A central assumption underpinning this work is that the human brain has evolved cognitive mechanisms to enable complex social interaction to take place. This includes processes such as face recognition and the development of theory of mind, which allows an individual to empathise and ‘read the mind' of another person during interaction. Neuroscientists are seeking to identify the neural pathways in the brain activated during social exchange and suggesting that apparent anomalies are linked to the aetiology or symptomatology of disorders such as autism. At the same time, there is increasing recognition of the ‘plasticity' of important parts of the human brain, such as the cerebral cortex. This opens the door to exploring how social, cultural and environmental factors may shape the formation and operation of the key processes involved in social cognition during both child development and normal adult life.
In contrast to the key assumption underlying this neuroscientific research agenda, much work in social science and anthropology has stressed the social and cultural embeddedness of interaction. From this perspective, the meaning of actions such as talk cannot be separated from their context or understood outside the local setting of their production. As a consequence, any neuroscientific theory of human social interaction will have to grapple with a number of important questions: How can it be establishing what is common to all social life and what is culturally specific i.e. what aspects of interaction are ‘universal'? Can any generalisations be made about the norms of social interaction just from understanding the cognitive processes involved? How can neuroscientific research draw on work within the social sciences to help develop more robust knowledge? At the same time, new knowledge of social cognition poses important challenges to the social sciences, including: How might the neural mechanisms of social cognition structure interaction? How can ideas of embodiment be incorporated into sociological accounts of social life? It is hoped that this seminar will start to address some of these questions, stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration and map out a common research agenda in more detail.
Speakers:
- Professor Jonathan Potter (Psychology, Loughborough): ‘Discourse and explanations of social interaction' see background paper [ pdf ]
- Professor Charles Stafford (Anthropology, LSE): 'Understanding social cognition and interaction'
- Professor Robert Turner (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL): ‘Cultural learning, socialisation and the brain'