I've recently joined Prof. Winrich Freiwald's Laboratory of Neural Systems at The Rockefeller University in New York City, where I continue work (initiated in Prof. Asif Ghazanfar's Primate Neuroethology Laboratory) investigating neural mechanisms for communication and coordination between individuals. My graduate work (with Prof. Michael Platt at Duke) focused on gaze following. Social contagion -- the transmission of thoughts, feelings, attention, and intentions through ritualized behaviors -- is highly developed in humans, but has been observed in diverse species, suggesting some mechanisms arose early in evolution. If you'd like to discuss these or related issues, please gmail stephen.v.shepherd.

"Facial Muscle Coordination in Monkeys During Rhythmic Facial Expressions and Ingestive Movements." SV Shepherd, M Lanzilotto, AA Ghazanfar. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(18):6105-16. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.6136-11.2012 [page] [pdf]

"Monkeys at the Movies: What Evolutionary Cinematics Tells Us about Film." Ghazanfar AA, Shepherd SV. Projections, 5(2):1-25, 2011. doi:10.3167/proj.2011.050202 [page] [pdf]

"Eye-gaze and arrow cues influence elementary sound perception." Borjon J*, Shepherd SV*, Todorov A, Ghazanfar AA. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 278(1714):1997-2004, 2011. doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2306 [page] [pdf]

"Human-monkey gaze correlations reveal convergent and divergent patterns of movie viewing." Shepherd SV, Steckenfinger SA, Hasson U, Ghazanfar AA. Current Biology, 20(7):649-56, 2010. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.02.032 [page] [pdf] [video]

"Mirroring of attention by neurons in macaque parietal cortex." Shepherd SV, Klein JT, Deaner RO, Platt ML. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 106(23):9489-94, 2009. doi:10.1073/pnas.0900419106 [page] [pdf]

"Spontaneous social orienting and gaze-following in ringtailed lemurs (Lemur catta)." Shepherd SV, Platt ML. Animal Cognition 11(1):13-20, 2008. doi:10.1007/s10071-007-0083-6 [page] [pdf]

"Familiarity accentuates gaze-cuing in women but not men." Deaner RO, Shepherd SV, Platt ML. Biology Letters 3:64-7, 2006. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2006.0564 [page] [pdf]

"Social status gates social attention in monkeys." Shepherd SV, Deaner RO, Platt ML. Current Biology 16(4):R119-R120, 2006. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2006.02.013 [page] [pdf]

"Noninvasive telemetric gaze tracking in freely-moving socially-housed prosimian primates." Shepherd SV, Platt ML. Methods 38(3):185-194, 2006. doi:10.1016/j.ymeth.2005.12.003 [page] [pdf] [Skriatok scripts for Matlab]

"Following Gaze: Gaze-following behavior as a window into social cognition." Shepherd SV. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 4(5):1-13, 2010. doi:10.3389/fnint.2010.00005 [page] [pdf]

"Social Attention and the Brain." Klein JT*, Shepherd SV*, Platt ML. Current Biology 19:R958-62, 2009. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.08.010 [page] [pdf]

"Embodied Symbols: Pointing and Joint Attention." Cappuccio ML, Shepherd SV. In The Hand: An Organ of Mind (ed. Z Radman), MIT Press, in press.

"Emoción y conducta [Emotion and Behavior]." Lemus L, Shepherd SV. In Origin y Cambio, Universidad Iberoamericana, in press.

"Sociality, Attention and the Mind’s Eyes." Shepherd SV, Cappuccio M. In Joint Attention: New Developments (ed. A. Seemann), MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 978-0262016827 [page] [pdf]

"Engaging neocortical networks with dynamic faces." Shepherd SV, Ghazanfar AA. In Dynamic Faces: Insights from Experiments and Computation (eds. M. Giese, C. Curio, H. Bülthoff), MIT Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0262014533 [page] [pdf]

"Neuroethology of Attention." Shepherd SV, Platt ML. In Primate Neuroethology (eds. M.L. Platt & A.A. Ghazanfar), Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0195326598 [page] [pdf]

"Neuroeconomics: Implications for understanding the neurobiology of addiction." Platt ML, Watson KK, Hayden BH, Shepherd SV, Klein JT. In Advances in the Neuroscience of Addiction (eds. C.M. Kuhn & G.F. Koob), CRC Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-084937391 [page] [pdf]

"Neuroethology of Pleasure." Watson KK, Shepherd SV, Platt ML. In Pleasures of the Brain (eds. M.L. Kringelbach & K.C. Berridge), Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-0195331028 [page] [pdf]

"Neuroethology of Attention." Shepherd SV, Platt ML. In Cognitive Biology: Evolutionary and Developmental Perspectives on Mind, Brain and Behavior (eds. L. Tommasi, M. Peterson & L. Nadel), MIT Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-0262012935 [page] [pdf]

"Neuroethology of Social Attention in Primates." Shepherd SV. Dissertation, Duke University, 2008. [page] [pdf]

"Missed connections: Integrating proximate and ultimate explanations in cognitive neuroscience. A review of Steven M. Platek, Julian P. Keenan, and Todd K. Shackelford (Eds.), Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience." Deaner RO, Shepherd SV. Evolutionary Psychology 5(3): 632-641, 2007. [pdf]