Passivity Phenomena: Implications for the Concept of Self

Behrendt, Ralf-Peter

doi:10.1080/15294145.2005.10773495

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 75 publications

(147 reference statements)

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“…5.4.3). These conflicts would be expected to activate the anterior cingulate gyrus in patients with OCD, consistent with findings by Fitzgerald et al (2005), bearing in mind that the anterior cingulate cortex is more likely a structure representing basic motivational/emotional states, including fear and anxiety (Behrendt 2005;Ploghaus et al 2003), rather than an "error-detection network" (Winterer et al 2002). What may be of greater pathophysiological relevance is the association of OCD with prefrontal lobe/basal ganglia pathology, given that compulsiveness is clinically related to impulsivity -part of the dysexecutive syndrome.…”

Section: Ralf-peter Behrendtsupporting

confidence: 78%

Why ritualized behavior? Precaution Systems and action parsing in developmental, pathological and cultural rituals

2006

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Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This “swamps” working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model.

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Section: Ralf-peter Behrendtsupporting

confidence: 78%

Why ritualized behavior? Precaution Systems and action parsing in developmental, pathological and cultural rituals

2006

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“…It also demands, rather awkwardly, that there should be a fundamental difference between agent/world and self/other distinctions. More parsimoniously, agent/world and self/other distinctions can be conceptualised on a more basic level of sensorimotor control, independently from mirroring (Behrendt 2005 Abstract: Susan Hurley's shared circuits model (SCM) rightly begins in action and progresses through a series of layers; but it fails to reach action understanding because it relies on mirroring as a driving force, draws on heavily criticized theories, and neglects the need for shared experience in our grasp of social understanding.…”

Section: Ralf-peter Behrendtmentioning

confidence: 99%

The shared circuits model (SCM): How control, mirroring, and simulation can enable imitation, deliberation, and mindreading

Hurley¹

2008

Behav Brain Sci

392

269

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Imitation, deliberation, and mindreading are characteristically human sociocognitive skills. Research on imitation and its role in social cognition is flourishing across various disciplines. Imitation is surveyed in this target article under headings of behavior, subpersonal mechanisms, and functions of imitation. A model is then advanced within which many of the developments surveyed can be located and explained. The shared circuits model (SCM) explains how imitation, deliberation, and mindreading can be enabled by subpersonal mechanisms of control, mirroring, and simulation. It is cast at a middle, functional level of description, that is, between the level of neural implementation and the level of conscious perceptions and intentional actions. The SCM connects shared informational dynamics for perception and action with shared informational dynamics for self and other, while also showing how the action/perception, self/other, and actual/possible distinctions can be overlaid on these shared informational dynamics. It avoids the common conception of perception and action as separate and peripheral to central cognition. Rather, it contributes to the situated cognition movement by showing how mechanisms for perceiving action can be built on those for active perception.;>;>The SCM is developed heuristically, in five layers that can be combined in various ways to frame specific ontogenetic or phylogenetic hypotheses. The starting point is dynamic online motor control, whereby an organism is closely attuned to its embedding environment through sensorimotor feedback. Onto this are layered functions of prediction and simulation of feedback, mirroring, simulation of mirroring, monitored inhibition of motor output, and monitored simulation of input. Finally, monitored simulation of input specifying possible actions plus inhibited mirroring of such possible actions can generate information about the possible as opposed to actual instrumental actions of others, and the possible causes and effects of such possible actions, thereby enabling strategic social deliberation. Multiple instances of such shared circuits structures could be linked into a network permitting decomposition and recombination of elements, enabling flexible control, imitative learning, understanding of other agents, and instrumental and strategic deliberation. While more advanced forms of social cognition, which require tracking multiple others and their multiple possible actions, may depend on interpretative theorizing or language, the SCM shows how layered mechanisms of control, mirroring, and simulation can enable distinctively human cognitive capacities for imitation, deliberation, and mindreading.

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confidence: 99%

The relationship between conscious phenomena and physical reality in behaviour control: The need for simplicity through phenomenological clarity

Behrendt¹

2008

Behav Brain Sci

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following a long struggle with cancer after her target article had been completed, and the list of those invited to comment had been assembled. Because she had foreseen the need for help in producing her response to the commentaries, she enlisted Andy Clark, Professor at Edinburgh University, for this purpose, with BBS's full encouragement. Julian Kiverstein, another colleague at the University of Edinburgh with particular interest in the shared circuits model, volunteered to help as well in the composition of the response to commentators.Commentators were specifically enjoined from writing eulogies and asked to produce the lively intellectual dialogue that Susan Hurley certainly had sought in sending her work to BBS. Kiverstein and Clark undertook not to emulate a response from Susan Hurley, but rather to clarify misunderstandings, organize the commentaries thematically, and show where the research might lead. We are grateful to all commentators, and particularly Kiverstein and Clark, for their graceful execution of what even in the normal case is a challenging task.Abstract: Imitation, deliberation, and mindreading are characteristically human sociocognitive skills. Research on imitation and its role in social cognition is flourishing across various disciplines. Imitation is surveyed in this target article under headings of behavior, subpersonal mechanisms, and functions of imitation. A model is then advanced within which many of the developments surveyed can be located and explained. The shared circuits model (SCM) explains how imitation, deliberation, and mindreading can be enabled by subpersonal mechanisms of control, mirroring, and simulation. It is cast at a middle, functional level of description, that is, between the level of neural implementation and the level of conscious perceptions and intentional actions. The SCM connects shared informational dynamics for perception and action with shared informational dynamics for self and other, while also showing how the action/perception, self/other, and actual/possible distinctions can be overlaid on these shared informational dynamics. It avoids the common conception of perception and action as separate and peripheral to central cognition. Rather, it contributes to the situated cognition movement by showing how mechanisms for perceiving action can be built on those for active perception.The SCM is developed heuristically, in five layers that can be combined in various ways to frame specific ontogenetic or phylogenetic hypotheses. The starting point is dynamic online motor control, whereby an organism is closely attuned to its embedding environment through sensorimotor feedback. Onto this are layered functions of prediction and simulation of feedback, mirroring, simulation of mirroring, monitored inhibition of motor output, and monitored simulation of input. Finally, monitored simulation of input specifying possible actions plus inhibited mirroring of such possible actions can generate information about the possible as opposed to actual instrumental actions of ...

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Passivity Phenomena: Implications for the Concept of Self

Cited by 7 publications

References 75 publications

Why ritualized behavior? Precaution Systems and action parsing in developmental, pathological and cultural rituals

Why ritualized behavior? Precaution Systems and action parsing in developmental, pathological and cultural rituals

The shared circuits model (SCM): How control, mirroring, and simulation can enable imitation, deliberation, and mindreading

The relationship between conscious phenomena and physical reality in behaviour control: The need for simplicity through phenomenological clarity

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