Interbrain Frame: Interaction and Cognition in Computer-Mediated Communication

Abstract

The article tries to develop a socio-cognitive framework for the study of computer-mediated communication starting from the analysis of the metaphors used to describe the new interactive communication environments. A conceptual model of context is presented to account for both interaction and identity construction processes. Context, according to the interbrain frame model is not restricted to the physical copresence of other people, but consists of the interlocutory space that provides the subject with socially recognizable meanings. The model has three main implications. First, communication is not only—or not so much—a transfer of information, but also the activation of a psychosocial relationship, the process by which interlocutors coconstruct an area of reality. Second, technology and human minds are linked by circular causality and reciprocity, a form of reciprocal influence generating interaction that both structures and is structured by action. Third, community, for persons interacting in a technological environment, is shifting from culture-defining mass media to that of a proliferation of media as alternative sources of mediated experience. In fact, the key feature of Cyberspace—the virtual space inhabited by electronic network users—is interaction, from which a new sense of self and community can be built.