Information processing is widely influenced by the presence of others; the influence on cognitive processing extends from the sensitivity to others’ attention and action, their perceptions, perspectives, beliefs & goals

Altercentric Cognition: How Others Influence Our Cognitive Processing. Dora Kampis, Victoria Southgate. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, September 24 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.09.003

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1309111875251122176

Highlights

.  Humans are altercentric: our information processing is widely influenced by the presence of other agents.

.  The influence of others on cognitive processing extends from the sensitivity to others’ attention and action, their perceptions, perspectives, and beliefs, even when our immediate goal is individual.

.  Altercentric effects range from short-term effects, such as motor mimicry, gaze cueing, and influence on perceptual sensitivity, to influences on semantic processing and short as well as long-term memory.

.  Altercentrism may function to align input across different individuals, thus facilitating interpersonal coordination, communication, group dynamics, and cumulative culture.

Abstract: Humans are ultrasocial, yet, theories of cognition have often been occupied with the solitary mind. Over the past decade, an increasing volume of work has revealed how individual cognition is influenced by the presence of others. Not only do we rapidly identify others in our environment, but we also align our attention with their attention, which influences what we perceive, represent, and remember, even when our immediate goals do not involve coordination. Here, we refer to the human sensitivity to others and to the targets and content of their attention as ‘altercentrism’; and aim to bring seemingly disparate findings together, suggesting that they are all reflections of the altercentric nature of human cognition.

Keywords: altercentrismsocial cognitionmirroringperspective takingself and otherattentional bias