The Phenomenology of Joint Action: Self-Agency vs. Joint-Agency
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چکیده
than at the motor level, yet still firmly anchored on a particular situation of actions rather than detached. To understand the proximal intentions of others, it is thus not enough that one be able to retrieve the immediate motor goal of an observed movement, one must also infer its possible significance given further information about the situation in which it occurs. Moreover, given that even in a single situation there may be a number of different action sequences an elementary motor act may be part of, to further narrow down the range of possibilities, it may be crucial to identify the features of the situation the actor is attending to. 23 Thus, to form reliable representations of a co-agent proximal intentions based on action observation would involve not just recruiting for simulation purposes the forward and inverse models that operate at the P-level but also filtering input to those simulation processes using one’s knowledge of what the co-agent is attending to. Sebanz et al. (2006a) describe another important means to predict others’ actions and intentions: task sharing. By knowing what another’s task is – that is, knowing the stimulusresponse contingencies of their task, one can predict what they are likely to do. Empirical evidence shows that when subjects know these stimulus-response mappings, they generate a representation of the appropriate action following stimulus presentation but in advance of action observation (Kilner et al., 2004; van Schie et al., 2004). Furthermore, a series of recent studies (Sebanz et al., 2005; Sebanz et al., 2006b; 2007) showed that actors form shared representations of tasks quasi-automatically, even when it is more effective to ignore one another. Shared representations of tasks as well as shared representations of proximal intentions (rather than simply motor intentions) thus allow co-agents to extend the temporal horizon of their own planning, by making it possible for them to anticipate others’ future actions and prepare responses to these future actions. For shared representations of actions and tasks to foster coordination rather than create confusion, it is important that agents be also able to keep apart representations of their own and of others’ actions and intentions. Unless it is clear who is doing (or preparing to do) what, co-agents cannot efficiently plan their next moves. Although the exact mechanisms through which self-other distinction is achieved are not yet well understood, there is growing brainimaging and clinical evidence that the right parietal cortex and the insula are strongly implicated in this process of self-other distinction (Ruby & Decety, 2001, Farrer & Frith, 2002, Farrer et al, 2003, Jeannerod & Pacherie, 2004). In particular, existing data indicate that activation in the right inferior parietal lobule is negatively correlated, and activation of the 24 insula positively correlated, with self-agency. Since both areas are involved in various forms of mapping and integration of multimodal information, agency attribution and self-other distinction appear to be based on processes of comparison of information from different sources, including interoceptive, exteroceptive and motor feedback signals. I have so far discussed two kinds of abilities successful action depends on: the ability to share perceptual representations of the situation of action, and the ability co-represent the actions and proximal intentions of co-agents while maintaining a self-other distinction. A third kind of ability is also required, which is perhaps the most crucial, namely the ability to integrate the predicted effects of one’s own and others’ actions in relation to the joint goal. Joint attention and co-representations of others’ actions and intentions can support both competitive and cooperative interactions, but this third kind of ability is where the difference between cooperation and competition lies. Unfortunately, however, this ability is also the least well understood. It is as Sebanz and Knoblich (2008) put it, “critical and miraculous at the same time”. Some recent neuro-imaging studies (Newman-Norlund et al., 2007a, 2008) raise the possibility that right inferior frontal activations are related to integration processes; however, other interpretations of these activations in terms of inhibition processes are possible (Brass et al. 2001; Brass, 2005). Since empirical data are still scarce, the suggestions I have to offer regarding integration are perforce highly speculative. Bratman (2009a) spells out that requirement at the level of distal intentions in terms of a web of intentions allowing an agent to relate her own intentions and the intentions of her co-agents to an intention in favor of a joint activity. But how does that translate at the level of proximal intentions and what form does that intentional structure take? For there to be a joint action, co-actors have to be able to relate and adjust their own actions and the actions of their partners not just to one another but to the joint action This requires that agents be capable of explicitly representing the instrumental relation of their and their co-agents’ individual actions to the 25 joint action and this in turn requires that agents form a detailed representation of their joint goal that carves it, so to speak, at its instrumental joints. I therefore propose that the representation of the joint goal that agents form at the level of SP-intentions consists in a representation of a hierarchy of situated goals. This representation would be more specific than the kinds of plans that would be attached to SD-intentions insofar as goals are indexed to a specific situation and goals and sub-goals can be represented more concretely as desired states in that situation. Suppose, for instance, our joint goal as it could be represented at the level of SD-intentions is to rearrange the furniture in the living room by inverting the position of the dining space and of the television corner. At the level of proximal shared intentions, this goal can be specified more concretely as moving this table from here to there, placing the sofa along the wall facing the window, etc., and from this situated representation a hierarchy of sub-goals can be derived such as first clearing obstacles off the way, unplugging the TV set, and so on. Note that for this representation of a hierarchy of situated goals to be shared, co-agents should jointly attend to the situation. At the same time, this representation remains more abstract than representations agents may form of their own actions and of those of their co-actors since by itself it neither specifies the precise means to be employed to achieve the various situated goals and subgoals nor who is to do what. To relate and adjust their own actions and the actions of their partners not just to one another but to the joint action, agents should be capable of explicitly representing the instrumental relation of their individual actions to the situated joint goal structure. This leads to increased demands on executive control. Actors need not just keep track of who’s doing what and of how what others are doing affect what they themselves are doing or going to do. They must also keep track of how what each is doing contributes (or, if their actions are unsuccessful, fails to contribute) to the achievement of goals and subgoals within the joint goal hierarchy, thus monitoring progress toward the achievement of the overarching joint goal and allowing
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تاریخ انتشار 2010