This paper provides a starting point for psychological research on the sense of commitment within the context of joint action. We begin by formulating three desiderata: to illuminate the motivational factors that lead agents to feel and act committed, to pick out the cognitive processes and situational factors that lead agents to sense that implicit commitments are in place, and to illuminate the development of an understanding of commitment in ontogeny. In order to satisfy these three desiderata, we propose a minimal framework, the core of which is an analysis of the minimal structure of situations which can elicit a sense of commitment. We then propose a way of conceptualizing and operationalizing the sense of commitment, and discuss cognitive and motivational processes which may underpin the sense of commitment.

Previous research has shown that interpersonal coordination enhances pro-social attitudes and behavior. Here, we extend this research by investigating whether the degree of coordination observed in a joint action enhances the perception of individuals' commitment to the joint action. In four experiments, participants viewed videos of joint actions. In the low coordination condition, two agents made independent individual contributions to a joint action. In the high coordination condition, the individual contributions were tightly linked. Participants judged whether and for how long the observed agents would resist a tempting outside option and remain engaged in the joint action. The results showed that participants were more likely to expect agents to resist outside options when observing joint actions with a high degree of coordination. This indicates that observing interpersonal coordination is sufficient to enhance the perception of commitment to joint action. AbstractPrevious research has shown that interpersonal coordination enhances pro-social attitudes and

Although it is well established that regions of premotor cortex (PMC) are active during action observation, it remains controversial whether they play a causal role in action understanding. In the experiment reported here, we used off-line continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to investigate this question. Participants received cTBS over the hand and lip areas of left PMC, in separate sessions, before completing a pantomime-recognition task in which half of the trials contained pantomimed hand actions, and half contained pantomimed mouth actions. The results reveal a double dissociation: Participants were less accurate in recognizing pantomimed hand actions after receiving cTBS over the hand area than over the lip area and less accurate in recognizing pantomimed mouth actions after receiving cTBS over the lip area than over the hand area. This finding constrains theories of action understanding by showing that somatotopically organized regions of PMC contribute causally to action understanding and, thus, that the mechanisms underpinning action understanding and action performance overlap.

We use a general computational framework for brain function to develop a theory of the self. The theory is that the self is an inferred model of endogenous, deeply hidden causes of behavior. The general framework for brain function on which we base this theory is that the brain is fundamentally an organ for prediction error minimization.There are three related parts to this project. In the first part (Sections 2-3), we explain how prediction error minimization must lead to the inference of a network of deeply hidden endogenous causes. The key concept here is that prediction error minimization in the long term approximates hierarchical Bayesian inference, where the hierarchy is critical to understand the place of the self, and the body, in the world.In the second part (Sections 4-5), we discuss why such a set of hidden endogenous causes should qualify as a self. We show how a comprehensive prediction error minimization account can accommodate key characteristics of the self. It turns out that, though the modelled endogenous causes are just some among other inferred causes of sensory input, the model is special in being, in a special sense, a model of itself.The third part (Sections 6-7) identifies a threat from such self-modelling: how can a self-model be accurate if it represents itself? We propose that we learn to be who we are through a positive feedback loop: from infancy onward, humans apply agent-models to understand what other agents are up to in their environment, and actively align themselves with those models. Accurate self-models arise and are sustained as a natural consequence of humans’ skill in modeling and interacting with each other. The concluding section situates this inferentialist yet realist theory of the self with respect to narrative conceptions of the self.

In recent years, several minimalist accounts of joint action have been offered (e.g. Tollefsen Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35:75-97, 2005; Sebanz et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(6): 234-1246, 2006; Vesper et al. Neural Networks 23 (8/9): 998-1003, 2010), whichseek to address some of the shortcomings of classical accounts. Minimalist accounts seek to reduce the cognitive complexity demanded by classical accounts either by leaving out shared intentions or by characterizing them in a way that does not demand common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures of intentions. Moreover, they propose models of the actual factors facilitating online coordination of movements. The present proposal aims to enrich a minimalist framework by showing how shared emotions can facilitate coordination without presupposing common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures of intentions. Shared emotions are defined for the purposes of this paper as affective states that fulfill two minimal criteria: (a) they are expressed (verbally or otherwise) by one person; and (b) the expression is perceived (consciously or unconsciously) by another person. Various ways in which the fulfillment of (a) and (b) can lead to effects that function as coordinating factors in joint action are distinguished and discussed.

Can the perception that one's partner is investing effort generate a sense of commitment to a joint action? To test this, we developed a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round. This enabled us to operationalize commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a 'finish' button to conclude each round. Our results from three experiments reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to be cues of their partner's effortful contribution (Experiment 1). Crucially, this effect was not observed when they knew their partner to be an algorithm (Experiment 2), nor when it was their own effort that had been invested (Experiment 3). These results support the hypothesis that the perception of a partner's effort elicits a sense of commitment, leading to increased persistence in the face of a temptation to disengage.

The main aim of the work is to assess physical parameters of forest woodchips and their impact on the prices achieved by the supplier in transactions with a power plant. During fragmentation of logging residue, high content of green matter and contaminants negatively impacts the quality parameters that serve as basis for settlements. The analysis concerns data on the main parameters -water content, fuel value, sulphur and ash content -from 252 days of deliveries of forest chips to a power plant. The deliveries were realised from forested areas on an average about 340 km from the plant. Average water content and the resultant fuel value of forest chips was within 27-47% and 8.7-12.9 GJ×Mg −1 (appropriately), respectively. They depend on the month in which they are delivered to the power plant. The threshold values for the above-mentioned parameters are set by the plant at a real level and the suppliers have no problems with meeting them. The parameter that is most frequently exceeded is ash content (11.5% of cases). The settlement system does not differentiate on the basis of the transport distance but gives possibility to lower the settlement price when the quality parameters are not met but provides no reward for deliveries with parameters better than the average ones. On the basis of results obtained, it was calculated that average annual settlement price is lower than the contract price by about 0.20 PLN×GJ −1 , which in case of the analysed company may translate into an average daily loss of about 700 PLN.

In recent years, a number of theorists have developed approaches to social cognition that highlight the centrality of social interaction as opposed to mindreading (e.