ABSTRACT
Social neuroscience investigates the neurobiology of interacting minds. In this chapter, we review studies that have taken an “interactive turn” to focus on the behavioral and neural mechanisms of social interaction rather than social observation. This second-person neuroscience helps to provide a more integrative and ecologically valid view of neural activity during real-life encounters. Moreover, it helps to connect social neuroscience with neurosemiotics, which is concerned with the emergence of human communication, the use and interpretation of signs, and their underlying neural bases. Available results highlight the so-called mentalizing network alongside brain activity similarities between interactants as key elements of communication. A combination of second-person neuroscience and neurosemiotics can shed new light on the neurobiology of intersubjectivity.
