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.