The Origin of Social Skills: Manipulating Shared Intentionality in Bioengineering Systems for Empathy Training

Abstract

This pilot study (<em>N</em><em> </em>= 28) aims to develop universal computer-aided empathy training. The experiment tests a research design of manipulating behavior in subjects toward non-affective cues in a bioengineering system. The study implements the Mother-Fetus Neurocognitive Model to involve subjects in subliminal cognitive collaboration with confederates, which enables subjects to associate the meaning of empathy with the picture only seen by confederates. The outcome shows the feasibility of the chosen research design with the efficiency of the 7-minute training: 50% of subjects confidentially attribute an empathic attitude to the neutral stimuli, and the probability of such an outcome, in a case if achieved by chance, is only <em>p</em><em> </em>= 0.004. Since subliminal collaboration in adults benefits from the innate quality of shared intentionality, the paper also discusses the genesis of basic emotions and social skills through neuronal coordinated activity in the mother-child dyad beginning from the pregnancy period.