Neuroscientists are fond of talking about brain systems for the processing of “what” and “where” information about objects and their locations. What is critically missing is the concept of a “who” system dedicated to the neural processing of information about social agents—both the self and others—and their interactions. I propose here the characterization of such a system, one that functions not only in perception but in production as well, such as when recounting stories about oneself and others. The most human-specific features of the “who” system are two complementary systems that I refer to as the other-as-self mechanism and the self-as-other mechanism. The major function of the other-as-self mechanism is to perceive other people egocentrically as proxies of the self, as occurs through the processes of mentalizing and empathizing in both everyday life and in the experience of the theatrical and literary arts. The major function of the self-as-other mechanism is to overtly depict other people during acts of communication through vocal and gestural processes of mimicry, such as occurs during quotation in conversation and through acting in the theatrical arts. Overall, the “who” system of the human brain mediates both perceptual and behavioral aspects of social cognition, and establishes the existential distinction between self and other in human cognition. I present neural models for the instantiation of the “who” system in the human brain and conclude with a discussion of how narrative serves as a foundation for human cognition more generally, what I refer to as narrative-based cognition.

中文翻译：

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人脑的“谁”系统：关于自我和他人的社会认知系统

神经科学家喜欢谈论大脑系统，用于处理关于物体及其位置的“什么”和“在哪里”信息。严重缺少的是“谁”系统的概念，该系统致力于对有关社会代理（包括自我和他人）及其交互的信息进行神经处理。我在这里提出了这样一个系统的特征，一个不仅在感知中起作用而且在生产中起作用的系统，例如在讲述关于自己和他人的故事时。“谁”系统最特定于人类的特征是两个互补的系统，我称之为他者作为自我机制和自我作为他者机制。他者作为自我机制的主要功能是以自我为中心将他人视为自我的代理，正如在日常生活以及戏剧和文学艺术体验中的心理化和移情过程中发生的那样。自我作为他者机制的主要功能是通过模仿的声音和手势过程在交流行为中公开描绘其他人，例如在谈话中引用和通过戏剧艺术表演时发生的。总体而言，人脑的“谁”系统介导了社会认知的感知和行为方面，并在人类认知中建立了自我与他人之间的存在区别。我展示了人脑中“谁”系统实例化的神经模型，最后讨论了叙事如何作为更普遍的人类认知的基础，我称之为基于叙事的认知。