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I Interact Therefore I Am: Human Becoming in and Through Social Interaction

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I Interact Therefore I Am: Human Becoming in and Through Social Interaction ‘I interact therefore I am’ Human becoming in and through social interaction Dissertation zum Erwerb des Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) an der Medizinischen Fakultät der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München vorgelegt von Dimitrios Bolis aus Thessaloniki 2020 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Leonhard Schilbach Second expert: Prof. Dr. Nikolaos Koutsouleris Third expert: Prof. Dr. med. Alkomiet Hasan Dean: Prof. Dr. med. dent. Reinhard Hickel Date of oral defense: March 6th, 2020 “One drop plus one drop makes a bigger drop, not two.” Andrei Tarkovsky iii Abstract That psychological sciences suffer from a profound crisis is probably not extremely controversial. Yet, arguably, the recently debated replication failure is nothing but a symptom of deeply rooted dichotomies and ontological commitments lying at its core. Undeniably, essential aspects of the human condition are typically studied in isolation via applying static categories, while philosophical considerations and human practice are largely neglected. In this context and drawing inspiration from real-life experience through a Vygotskian lens, this thesis attempts to motivate a systematic shift of focus from being to becoming; in fact becoming-with. More concretely, leaning on the dialectical method, cultural-historical theory and recent developments of social computational neuroscience, (i.) this thesis presents the dialectical attunement account which argues that a multiscale analysis of social interaction might allow us to scientifically reconsider the self, beyond the individual, where it really emerges, unfolds and manifests itself — in social relations. In this light, (ii.) it puts forward the dialectical misattunement hypothesis, which views autism and broadly psychopathology as a dynamic interpersonal mismatch, rather than a (disordered) function of single brains. Critically, (iii.) it operationalizes these hypotheses by establishing a novel empirical framework, namely two-person psychophysiology, which measures and analyzes the multiscale dynamics of social interaction. Deploying this framework, this thesis empirically demonstrates that (iv.) real-time dynamics of social interaction do matter in both collective and individual dimensions ‒ even beyond awareness‒ lending support to second-person and enactivist proposals. With regard to psychopathology, this thesis demonstrates that (v.) it is primarily the mismatch of autistic traits –not traits per se– which predicts core aspects of interpersonal attunement in real-life social relations, offering a first empirical validation of the dialectical misattunement hypothesis. Taken together, this thesis tries to break free from dichotomies such as internalism/externalism or healthy/patient, in experiential, theoretical, methodological and empirical regards. Such a dialectical and empirical approach to human becoming in and through social interaction encourages a social change pertinent to various fields of human research and practice, ranging from psychiatry and pedagogy to ethics and artificial intelligence. Keywords: dialectical attunement, dialectical misattunement, two-person psychophysiology, second- person neuroscience, Bayesian intersubjectivity, social interaction, social relations, self, culture, autism, dialectics, enactivism, computational psychiatry, predictive processing, active inference, free energy principle, Vygotsky, Bayes. Acknowledgments This thesis could not be accomplished without the contribution of several people. First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude and admiration to my academic supervisor, Leonhard Schilbach, for the scientific inspiration, continuous support, kind feedback and limitless trust as well as freedom of action, throughout the duration of this endeavor. In fact, I could not imagine of a more productive collaboration. Additionally, I am thankful to the members of my Thesis Advisory Committee, Nikolaos Koutsouleris and Alkomiet Hasan, as our meetings and their always generous comments ensured the smooth progression of this work. I also really appreciate my interactions with a number of experts in the field, including but not limited to Bahador Bahrami and Ali Mahmoodi, who shared with me the original material of their seminal social interaction studies, as well as Cristina Becchio, Guillaume Dumas, Karl Friston, Ivana Konvalinka, Anna Ciaunica and Manolis Dafermos for the insightful and inspiring discussions and support. Crucially, parts of the work accomplished in collaboration with the Japanese National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS) and the University of Cambridge and specifically with the great support from Takahiko Koike, Norihiro Sadato, Victoria Leong and Stanimira Georgieva. Furthermore, I am thankful to my colleagues in Munich and especially my officemates Juha Lahnakoski, Marie Luise Brandi, Tore Erdmann, Lara Henco, Hella Parpart, Laura Albantakis, Imme Christina Zillekens and Raoul Haaf for the daily and encouraging communication, not only scientifically but also personally. Additionally, the multifaceted help of a number of BSs, MD and MSc students, I had the luck to supervise and work with, have been crucial for accomplishing the great amount of empirical experiments, which involved the recruitment of approx. 400 participants over the last 4 years, vi Acknowledgments that is Alana Darcher, Beril Nisa Can, Bhagyashree Padalkar, Carolin Nafziger, Daniela Seidel, Dorontina Ismajli, Ebru Ecem Tavacioglu, Elena Wang, Emre Yavuz, Jeanette Tamm, Julia Folz, Kamile Giedraityte, Lioba Enk, Magdalena Seethaler, Milena Aleksic, Tannaz Mostafid and Uta Schneider. I am also deeply grateful to all the participants who kindly volunteered to participate in our studies and oftentimes provided their invaluable feedback. Furthermore, the help of the MPI technician Karl-Heinz Honsberg has been instrumental in solving a multitude of technical problems I faced while designing and putting together the electronics of the two-person psychophysiology platform. Last but not least, I owe this endeavor to the few persons around me and deeply within, who have been unceasingly providing me not only with the courage and ‒often practical– support for continuing, but the literal meaning of life, which according to Albert Camus has been nothing more or less than ‘whatever prevents you from killing yourself’. Contents PREFACE __________________________________________________________________________________________ XI 1. INTRODUCTION — ‘THROUGH OTHERS WE BECOME OURSELVES’ _____________________ 1 1.1. Science is not a scientist _____________________________________________________________________ 2 1.2. Core conceptions at a glance _________________________________________________________________ 5 1.2.1. Dialectical attunement ___________________________________________________________________ 5 1.2.2. Dialectical misattunement ________________________________________________________________ 9 1.2.3. Two-person psychophysiology ____________________________________________________________ 13 1.3. Novelty __________________________________________________________________________________ 16 2. THEORETICAL WORK — ‘WHEN VYGOTSKY MET BAYES’ _______________________________ 19 2.1. Dialectical attunement _____________________________________________________________________ 21 ‘I interact therefore I am’: The self as a historical product of dialectical attunement ______________________ 21 2.1.1. What is the ‘Self’? ______________________________________________________________________ 22 Questioning the Question __________________________________________________________________ 22 A Dialectical Perspective ___________________________________________________________________ 25 A Bayesian Perspective ____________________________________________________________________ 31 2.1.2. The Dynamic Self in Action _______________________________________________________________ 34 The Dialectic of Internalization/Externalization: Insights from Evolutionary & Developmental Psychology, Neuroscience & Psychiatry _________________________________________________________________ 34 Two‑Person Psychophysiology & Multi‑level Accounts of Intersubjectivity ___________________________ 44 The Dialectical Self: Scientific and Societal Relevance ____________________________________________ 47 2.2 Dialectical misattunement ___________________________________________________________________ 53 Beyond Autism: Introducing the dialectical misattunement hypothesis and a Bayesian account of intersubjectivity ______________________________________________________________________________ 53 2.2.1. A Synthesis of Dialectical and Computational Perspectives _____________________________________ 54 Psychiatry through a Dialectical Lens _________________________________________________________ 54 Psychiatry through a Computational Lens______________________________________________________ 58 The Dialectical Misattunement Hypothesis and a Bayesian Account of Intersubjectivity ________________ 59 2.2.2. Traditional Views on ASC ________________________________________________________________ 61 Bayesian Approaches ________________________________________________________________________ 65 The Bayesian Brain Hypothesis ______________________________________________________________ 65 The Hypo-Prior Hypothesis of Autism _________________________________________________________ 66 Predictive Processing and Active Inference ____________________________________________________ 67 The Aberrant Precision Hypothesis of Autism___________________________________________________
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