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I had just received my badge, the conference program, and the complimentary laptop sleeve; I turned around and stood face to face with John, who was also waiting in line to register for the conference. We exchanged a short word of greeting and we shook hands wholeheartedly. When this encounter was over, I bumped into Mary; we both expressed our surprise and then hugged each other. Right after this hug, I nodded politely to Paul passing behind Mary, noticing that he wanted to engage in a conversation. Had Mary been accompanied by her spouse, perhaps the hug would have been toned down to a warm handshake. Had I not hugged Mary, I might have had more trouble avoiding Paul, whom I suspected to be reviewer #3 of my recently rejected paper. This type of familiar scene is usually fluid and many of these social interactions feel automatic. However, if we analyze further the simple action of the greeting, the initial social contact with others, we learn that incalculable cognitive operations subserved by a number of neurofunctional systems are at play. But at the source of this cascade of cerebral processing often lie the actions of the others.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230360792_9

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