Social

Active inference research in the social domain tends to focus on modeling communication and the sharing of belief models within groups. Such topics can be understood as pertaining to normative processes of group cognition. Over time, we can expect research to extend further to pathological examples of group cognition, assessment of group cognition quality, steering of group cognition to improve quality, evaluation of the cognitive architectures used during group cognition (e.g., rules, policies, computational tools, communication tools, attention mechanisms), and evaluation of group cognition where the group is a political body (such as a city or nation).

Group cognition rests on the communication of (potentially dynamic and evolving) belief models—-the internal generative models that individuals use to predict and explain their world—and consensus building with respect to beliefs. As described by Albarracin et al., 2024 for a generic group in the normative setting, “group members can be seen as actively and implicitly aligning their beliefs and expectations through dialogue and interactions, thereby enhancing their ability to predict each other’s actions and intentions, and thereby coming to perceive and act in the world in similar ways.”

Most humans do not conceive of their own beliefs in terms of models, however. Rather, humans tend to experience their beliefs and make sense of the world in part through narratives (Bietti, Tilston, and Bangerter 2019; Turner et al. 2023; Fanti Rovetta 2023; Cordes et al. 2021). These can be internal narratives that a person constructs, adjusts, and recites to himself or herself, or social narratives that are shared within a group. In the active inference context, Albarracin et al. (2021) consider social scripts, which are widely-supported prescriptions about how one is to behave in various social settings, or what is important in those settings. Bouizegarene et al. (2020) consider shared narratives conceived of more broadly. Social scripts and shared narratives help humans to generate more accurate predictions about the world and to coordinate social behavior.

The CogNarr Ecosystem, an Active Inference Institute project, has as a goal the facilitation of group cognition at scale, through sharing of belief models (Boik, 2024a, Boik, 2024b). This is an extension of previous work that viewed core societal systems (e.g., economic, financial, and governance systems) as part of the cognitive architecture of political bodies (Boik, 2020a, Boik, 2020b, Boik, 2021)

A large body of active inference research, perhaps thousands of papers, at least mentions the social setting. In addition to some articles already cited, articles in which the phrases “active inference” and “social” appear in the title include the following:

• Gallagher and Allen, 2018. Active inference, enactivism and the hermeneutics of social cognition.
• Hipólito and van Es, 2022. Enactive-Dynamic Social Cognition and Active Inference.
• Constant et al., 2019. Regimes of Expectations: An Active Inference Model of Social Conformity and Human Decision Making.
• Cheadle et al., 2024. Active Inference and Social Actors: Towards a Neuro-Bio-Social Theory of Brains and Bodies in Their Worlds.
• Kirchner et al., 2022. Better Safe than Sorry?-An Active Inference Approach to Biased Social Inference in Depression.
• Tehrani-Safa et al., 2024. Learning Risk Preferences Through Social Interaction: An Active Inference Approach
• Fox, 2021. Active inference: Applicability to different types of social organization explained through reference to industrial engineering and quality management.
• Bezzazi, 2021. Social Active Inference.
• Ohata and Tani, 2020. Investigation of the Sense of Agency in Social Cognition, Based on Frameworks of Predictive Coding and Active Inference: A Simulation Study on Multimodal Imitative Interaction.
• Matsumura et al, 2023. Social Emotional Valence for Regulating Empathy in Active Inference.
• Solymosi and Schulkin, 2024. Creative Resilience. Flourishing and Valuation through Social Allostasis and Active Inference.
• Tani, 2019. Accounting Social Cognitive Mechanisms by the Framework of Predictive Coding and Active Inference: A Synthetic Experimental Study using Robotics Interaction Platforms.

Some of these topics and papers were explored in the 2023 Social Science course.