Over the last decade, an increasing amount of work has revealed how individual cognition is influenced by the presence of others, irrespective of whether others’ perspectives and mental states are relevant to our current. Not only do we rapidly identify others in our environment, but we seem to spontaneously track others’ perspectives and mental states without being aware of it. Although evidence for this phenomenon have been accumulated at the level of behavior, the neural mechanisms supporting the effect of others on individual cognition are far from being understood. The project will
use a combination of various neuroscientific methods, including electrophysiology, neuroimaging and brain stimulation to understand how and why the presence of others affect the way we perceive and represent the world around us. Going a step forward, we will try to gain insight into the functional role of the other’s influence on individual cognition. The project will answer the following question: Do the presence of a second observer directly impact individual perception? Are mental states of others represented in a similar why as our own mental states? Does implicit tracking of others promote
learning during childhood? The results of the project will have a great impact in developmental psychology, in the field of education and in the clinical field with implications that transcend the basic science.