Forms of Vitality: Their Neural Bases, Their Role in Social Cognition, and the Case of Autism Spectrum Disorder

This article focuses on one of the most influential contributions of Daniel Stern: the notion of forms of vitality (FVs). We summarize how fruitful this notion is for social cognition and for the study of its neural bases. We argue that FVs enable one to shed new light on the elements making others’ behavior meaningful to one, thus offering a new take on social cognition. We also show how the notion of FVs can be usefully employed to study the bodily roots of social cognition deficits in individuals affected by the Autism Spectrum Disorder.