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Mind to Mind communication

Jacqueline Nadel
CNRS USR3246/University Pierre & Marie Curie, Emotion Centre
La Salpêtrière Hospital , Paris, France

We are tied to others via synchronic imitation of gestures and emotional expressions. Recent brain imaging studies have shown that the Mirror Neurons previously located in area F5 are part of a much wider network of shared activation between observation and execution pathways in the brain, to the extent that both primary motor and sensory cortices are activated, altogether with numerous other structures. Such results suggest that motor representations shared by two individuals may have the chronometry of an intra-individual perception-action coupling. Within this framework, I will report studies exploring the role of synchrony between agents in ‘Mind to Mind Communication’. The agents are infants, ordinary children, children with autism and adults.

Synchronic imitation of gestures provides strong support to the stance that ‘language derives from non-language’. Preverbal infants show an extensive use of synchronic imitation for communicative purpose. They take advantage of the fact that imitation offers two roles, the role of model and the role of imitator.  Via a coordinated alternation of imitating and being imitated, infants can sustain long social exchanges and share in­tentions here and now. It is a powerful communicative system that appears around twelve months, evolves in complex and coded combinations of imitating and being imitated throughout the two following years, and disappears when language is mastered. Such a developmental curve suggests that bodily   resonance to others’ actions prepares language. Non-verbal children with autism are sensitive to the imitative communication of another human or of a robot. Turn-taking, topic-sharing, understanding the other's intentions, negoti­ating shared goals through codes and routines, all these features of language are prepared by the use of synchronic imitation. Yet, any means of communication is supported by interpersonal synchronization, as shown by dual EEG recordings and interactive fMRI.

Via emotional resonance, we reflect automatically the facial expressions of others.  This synchronic mirroring provides to the partner a crucial index of the other’s social involvement allowing communication to take place. I report a study comparing the facial responses of children and adults to emotional patterns displayed by a robotic head and a human actor, thus questioning how far social interaction between humans may rely on intuitive biological signals such as emotional resonance to expressive non human patterns.

Books
Nadel, J.  &  Butterworth, G. (1999). Imitation in Infancy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
Nadel, J.  & Muir, D. (2005).  Emotional Development. Oxford, UK & NY: Oxford University Press
Chapters
Nadel, J. (2006). Does imitation matter to children with autism? In S. Rogers & J. Williams (Eds.), Imitation and the social mind (pp. 118-137). NY: The Guilford Press
Papers
Nadel, J., Carchon, I., Kervella, C., Marcelli, D., & Réserbat-Plantey, D. (1999). Expectancies for social contingency in 2-month-olds. Developmental Science, 2, 164-173. 
NADEL, J., CROUE, S., MATTLINGER, M-J. et al. (2000). Do children with autism have ontological expectancies concerning human behavior? Autism, 4, 2, 133-145.

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Name: Nadel
First name: Jacqueline
Title : Pr.Dr.
Professional Affiliation : CNRS USR3246, Centre Emotion, Hôpital de La Salpêtrière, 47, Bd de l’Hôpital, F-75013

Jacqueline Nadel, Professor Doctor in Cognitive Development, is an emeritus research director at the French National Centre of Scientific Research. In the last 10 years, she has been leading the group “Development and Psychopathology”, with a focus on the origin of social cognition without language. Her areas of expertise concern the development of imitation, emotion and precursors of intentionality in typical infants and in children with autism. Among numerous other publications, she is the editor, with George Butterworth, of the first book to bring together the extensive modern evidence for innate imitation in human infants (Imitation in Infancy , 1999, Cambridge University Press) and the editor of Emotional development  (2006, Oxford University Press). She is especially involved in interdisciplinary programs interfacing epigenetic robotics, human development and clinical interventions for children with severe autism.

Other activities
Editor of the French Journal ENFANCE at the Presses Universitaires de France
Associate Editor for Interaction studies: an Interdisciplinary Journal, Benjamins Ed.
Director of the French National  Interdisciplinary Network Autisme-Science

European contracts
European VIth program  Information Society Technologies  -Network of excellence  507422
Human-Machine interaction Network on Emotion (HUMAINE). End: Dec 2007
European VIth program- IST-4-STREP: Observational learning in Cognitive Agents. End: Feb 2009
European VIth program – IST- 6- STREP: Feelix (Feel, Interact, Express: a global approach to development with interdisciplinary grounding) –Dec. 2006-May 2010

Some recent publications:

• NADEL, j. (Ed.) (2009). Diagnosing autism: What is new? (Le diagnostic d’autisme: Quoi de neuf?). Enfance, 1, 156 p.
  nadel, j., & muir, d. (Eds.) (2005).Emotional development: Recent research advances. Oxford , UK & NY: Oxford University Press
  
• NADEL, J., PREPIN, K., & OKANDA, M. (2005). Experiencing contingency and agency: first step toward self-understanding?  Interaction studies: Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems, 6, 3, 447-462.
  
• NADEL, J., SOUSSIGNAN, R., CANET, P., LIBERT, G., & GERARDIN, P. (2005). Two –month-old infants of depressed mothers show mild, delayed and persistent change in emotional state after non-contingent interaction. Infant Behavior and Development, 4, 418-425
  
• Grynszpan, O., Nadel, J., Carbonell, N., Simonin, J., Constant, J., Le Barillier, F., Martin, J.C., Courgeon, M. (in press) A new virtual environment paradigm for high functioning autism intended to help attentional disengagement in a social context, In Proceedings of Virtual Rehabilitation 2009 International Conference, Haifa, Israel.