Interactive coordination in joint attention

Joint attention is located at the intersection of a complex set of capacities that serve our cognitive, emotional, and action-oriented relations with others. In one regard, it involves social cognition, our ability to understand others, what they intend, and what their actions mean. Here there is a two-way relationship between joint attention and social cognition. On the one hand, certain social cognitive abilities allow us to enter into jointattentional situations with others; on the other hand, our engagements in joint-attentional situations with others allow us to better understand their intentions and their actions.