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Open accessAbstract
This paper considers communication in terms of inference about the behaviour of others (and our own behaviour). It is based on the premise that our sensations are largely generated by other agents like ourselves. This means, we are trying to infer how our sensations are caused by others, while they are trying to infer our behaviour: for example, in the dialogue between two speakers. We suggest that the infinite regress induced by modelling another agent - who is modelling you - can be finessed if you both possess the same model. In other words, the sensations caused by others and oneself are generated by the same process. This leads to a view of communication based upon a narrative that is shared by agents who are exchanging sensory signals. Crucially, this narrative transcends agency - and simply involves intermittently attending to and attenuating sensory input. Attending to sensations enables the shared narrative to predict the sensations generated by another (i.e. to listen), while attenuating sensory input enables one to articulate the narrative (i.e. to speak). This produces a reciprocal exchange of sensory signals that, formally, induces a generalised synchrony between internal (neuronal) brain states generating predictions in both agents. We develop the arguments behind this perspective, using an active (Bayesian) inference framework and offer some simulations (of birdsong) as proof of principle.
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“This brings with it an extra inference problem; namely, the attribution of agency. In other words, if we use the same models to explain our own behavior and the observed consequences of another’s behavior, then we also have to carefully infer agency (in order to appropriately attenuate proprioceptive precision and preclude echopraxia, Friston and Frith, 2015).”
From 'Seeing the Dark': Grounding Phenomenal Transparency and Opacity in Precision Estimation for Active Inference (2018) · cites this paper as Friston and Frith, 2015
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Citations
Cites
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Metadata
- Authors
- Friston, K., & Frith, C.
- Affiliations
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Friston, Karl
- ORCID
- Friston, Karl
- Venue
- Consciousness and Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-11
- Volume
- 36
- Pages
- 390-405
- ISSN
- 1053-8100 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4553904
- OpenAlex
- W2024149692
- Cited by
- 359
- References
- 82
- Citations by year
- 2026: 44 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 43 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 16.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Consciousness and Cognition (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (091593, 088130)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- communication, joint action, shared narratives, Bayesian inference, infinite regress, shared models, sensory prediction, attention, attenuation, bird song, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Attention, Communication, Humans, Models, Theoretical, Perception, Sensation, Thinking, Theory of Mind
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