FIGURE 2.

Active inference model in a strongly coupled state: When two persons (mother as Person 1 and child as Person 2) are strongly coupled, one person’s active states become the total environmental inputs for the other person’s sensory states, and vice versa. In this dyadic model, the strong coupling between the two persons is formed when their nodes (As) and (Ss) are coupled, wherein (A₁) causes (S₂) and (A₂) causes (S₁). Due to the strong coupling, the variational free energy in Persons 1 and 2 are also coupled and thus the prior beliefs in their internal states (I₁ and I₂) are optimized collectively. The two large, dashed circles indicate that there are no longer any unitary nodes (E) in the dyadic model, as the external states are now served by the multi-level network of the other person’s active inference engine.