In the target article, Crespi & Badcock (C&B) propose a novel hypothesis based on observations that a large set of phenotypic traits exhibit diametrically opposite phenotypes in autism-spectrum versus psychotic-spectrum conditions. They propose that development of these conditions is mediated in part by alterations in This hypothesis is based on the model of the Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes. The authors have produced a masterful discussion of the differences between psychosis and autism. Of course, another article could be written on the (...) similarities. (shrink)

Mealey distinguishes two types of sociopathy: (1) or obligate, and (2) or facultative. Either sociopathy evolved twice, or one form is derived from the other, e.g., through: (1) genetic assimilation generating polymorphism in the relative strength of biases favoring the development of otherwise facultative strategies, or (2) independently heritable but strategically relevant characteristics biasing the optimal selection of facultative strategies.

For decades, philosophers and psychologists have assumed that children understand other people’s behavior on the basis of Belief Reasoning (BR) at latest by age 5 when they pass the false belief task. Furthermore, children’s use of BR in the true belief task has been regarded as being ontogenetically prior. Recent findings from developmental studies challenge this view and indicate that 4- to 5-year-old children make use of a reasoning strategy, which is cognitively less demanding than BR and called perceptual access (...) reasoning (PAR), in true belief tasks. I appeal to research on fluency to explain these findings. On my account, 4- to 5- year-old children understand other people’s behavior by means of BR if they experience cognitive strain (such as in false belief tasks) but they revert to simpler heuristics PAR when such an experience is missing (such as in true belief tasks). (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to determine to what extent contemporary cross-cultural and developmental research can shed light on the role that narrative practices might play in the development of folk psychology. In particular, I focus on the role of narrative practices in the development of false belief understanding, which has been regarded as a milestone in the development of folk psychology. Second, I aim to discuss possible cognitive procedures that may underlie successful performance in false belief tasks. Methodologically, I (...) distinguish between two kinds of narrative practices: ‘mentalistic narrative practice’, and ‘behavioral-contextual narrative practice’ behavior of another person in a specific socio-situational context). Whereas the former is more prevalent in Western cultures than in Eastern cultures, the latter is predominantly used by members of Eastern cultures. Mentalistic narrative practices correlate with cultural divergences in the development of false belief understanding throughout ontogeny but do not seem to play the key role. The analysis shows that conceptual change and the acquisition of mental state terms is essential for passing the false belief task, and that theory is likely to be the cognitive mechanism involved here such as proposed by Theory Theory. However, Hutto’s Narrative Practice Hypothesis trumps over Theory Theory to account for the varieties and ambiguities people typically meet when understanding each other in everyday life. (shrink)

Starting from Proust’s distinction between the self-attributive and self-evaluative views on metacognition, this paper presents a third view: self-mindshaping. Based on the notion of mindshaping as the core of social cognition, the self-mindshaping view contends that mindshaping abilities can be turned on one’s own mind. Against the self-attributive view, metacognition is not a matter of accessing representations to metarepresent them but of giving shape to those representations themselves. Against the self-evaluative view, metacognition is not blind to content but relies heavily (...) on it. We characterize our view in terms of four issues that, according to Proust, distinguish the previous approaches, namely, whether metacognitive mechanisms are the same as those employed to access other minds, whether metacognitive control requires conceptual representation, whether metacognition is propositional, and whether metacognitive access is linked to mental action. After describing some of the mechanisms for self-mindshaping, we show how this view regards metacognition as grounded on social interaction mechanisms, conceptually driven, possibly, but not necessarily, propositional, and engaged in the practical regulation of mental states. Finally, we examine the prospects for the primacy of self-mindshaping as the primary metacognitive function. We argue that self-attributive processes typically subserve the practical goals emphasized by the mindshaping view, and that the evaluative role played by procedural metacognition can be grounded on social cues rather than on experiential feelings. Even if this is not enough to claim the primacy of self-mindshaping, it still appears as a third kind of metacognition, not reducible to the other two. (shrink)

A widespread view in philosophy claims that inner speech is closely tied to human metacognitive capacities. This so-called format view of inner speech considers that talking to oneself allows humans to gain access to their own mental states by forming metarepresentation states through the rehearsal of inner utterances (section 2). The aim of this paper is to present two problems to this view (section 3) and offer an alternative view to the connection between inner speech and metacognition (section 4). According (...) to this alternative, inner speech (meta)cognitive functions derivate from the set of commitments we mobilize in our communicative exchanges. After presenting this commitment-based approach, I address two possible objections (section 5). (shrink)

Mealey proposes two categorical classes of sociopath, primary and secondary. I criticize this distinction on the basis that constructs of this kind have proved unrealistic in personality taxonomy and that dimensional systems capture reality much more successfully. I suggest how such a system could work in this particular context.

Behavioral biologists have long sought to link behavioral units (e.g., aggression, depression, sociopathy) with biological units (e.g., genes, neurotransmitters, hormones, neuroanatomical loci). These units, originally contrived for descriptive purposes, often lead to misunderstandings when they are reified for purposes of causal analysis. This genetic and biochemical explanation for sociopathy reflects such problems.

While Dubourg and Baumard argue that predisposition toward exploration draws us to fictional environments, they fail to answer their titular question: “Why Imaginary Worlds?” Research in pretend play, psychological distancing, and theatre shows that being “imaginary” (i.e., any type of unreal, rather than only fantastically unreal) makes exploration of any fictional world profoundly different than that of real-life unfamiliar environments.

This commentary extends arousal theory to suggest an explanation for the well-established inverse correlation between church attendance and involvement in crime. In addition, the results of two surveys of social scientists are reviewed to reveal just how little impact the biosocial/sociobiological perspective has had thus far on social science.

Emotion is critical in Mealey's conceptual arguments. However, several of her assertions about the role of emotion in sociopathy are problematic. Questions are raised regarding the link between lack of anxiety and low levels of secondary emotions such as love and sympathy, the argument that sociopaths are low in anxiety but high in neuroticism, and the designation of anxiety as a secondary emotion.

Barresi & Moore's account has at least two implications for moral psychology. First, it appears to provide support for cognitive theories of moral competence. Second, their claim that the development of social understanding depends upondomain-generalchanges in cognitive ability appears to oppose the idea that moral competence is under-pinned by a moral module.

In this paper, we deal with the issue of how it is possible for pretending children to engage in exploratory performances and entertain alternative states of affairs. We question the approach according to which pretenders must be capable of counterfactual reasoning. Instead, we follow an alternative action-based framework on cognition and thus pretense, which argues for a much more profound role of the context of play than the questioned Counterfactual Thinking Approach to Pretense (CTAP). First, we motivate this shift in (...) theoretical perspective by critiquing CTAP and providing arguments in favor of the action-based alternative we endorse. Then, we demonstrate that the action-based framework allows for a fruitful analysis of pretense in terms of its context rather than (solely) mind-internal processes. This paper proposes that (1) thematic play-frames enable unusual manipulations with objects and words, and invite dynamic interactions between players who can discover new possibilities for action and communication, as well as that (2) pretense contexts understood generally as opposed to non-pretense contexts have selected features—specifically the adults’ approval of playing with cultural norms, the looseness of constraints, and the lack of particular goals leading to children’s positive feelings—that are genuinely conducive to play explorations. Finally, we discuss other contexts of possibilities, as well as the educational prospects of particular context-to-context transmissions. (shrink)

As more criminals are imprisoned, other individuals change their behavior to replace them, as predicted by the theory of strategic behavior. The physiological correlates of sociopathy suggest that research in cognitive neuroscience can lead toward a solution. Promising pathways include building upon current knowledge of self-deceit, the independence of positive and negative emotions, the lateralization of risk and caution, and the conditions promoting prosocial behavior.

Over four decades, my ideas about the arts in human evolution have themselves evolved, from an original notion of art as a human behaviour of “making special” to a full-fledged hypothesis of artification. A summary of the gradual developmental path (or route) of the hypothesis, based on ethological principles and concepts, is given, and an argument presented in which artification is described as an exaptation whose roots lie in adaptive features of ancestral mother–infant interaction that contributed to infant survival and (...) maternal reproductive success. I show how the interaction displays features of a ritualised behavior whose operations (formalization, repetition, exaggeration, and elaboration) can be regarded as characteristic elements of human ritual ceremonies as well as of art (including song, dance, performance, literary language, altered surroundings, and other examples of making ordinary sounds, movement, language, environments, objects, and bodies extraordinary). Participation in these behaviours in ritual practices served adaptive ends in early Homo by coordinating brain and body states, and thereby emotionally bonding members of a group in common cause as well as reducing existential anxiety in individuals. A final section situates artification within contemporary philosophical and popular ideas of art, claiming that artifying is not a synonym for or definition of art but foundational to any evolutionary discussion of artistic/aesthetic behaviour. (shrink)

While a large body of literature on pejorative language has emerged recently, derogatory communication is a broader phenomenon that need not constitutively involve the use of words. This paper delineates the class of non-verbal pejoratives and sketches an account of the derogatory power of a subset of NVPs, namely those whose effectiveness crucially relies on iconicity. Along the way, I point out some ways in which iconic NVPs differ from wholly arbitrary NVPs and ritualized threat signals in the animal kingdom, (...) such as the wolf’s snarl, which do not threaten or demean targets by virtue of any kind of iconographic depiction. An iconic portrayal such as a racist caricature disparages its target by inviting recipients to entertain an unflattering image of the target. “Blackface” performers in the nineteenth-century, for example, promulgated an unflattering image of African-Americans by means of make-up, costumes, and vocal impersonations. (shrink)

The implicit-explicit distinction is applied to knowledge representations. Knowledge is taken to be an attitude towards a proposition which is true. The proposition itself predicates a property to some entity. A number of ways in which knowledge can be implicit or explicit emerge. If a higher aspect is known explicitly then each lower one must also be known explicitly. This partial hierarchy reduces the number of ways in which knowledge can be explicit. In the most important type of implicit knowledge, (...) representations merely reflect the property of objects or events without predicating them of any particular entity The dearest cases of explicit knowledge of a fact are representations of one's own attitude of knowing that fact. These distinctions are discussed in their relationship to similar distinctions such as procedural-declarative, conscious unconscious, verbalizable-nonverbalizable, direct-indirect tests, and automatic voluntary control. This is followed by an outline of how these distinctions can be used to integrate and relate the often divergent uses of the implicit-explicit distinction in different research areas. We illustrate this for visual perception, memory, cognitive development, and artificial grammar learning. (shrink)

This essay discusses Peter Langland-Hassan's approach to "explaining imagination" as it plays out in his recent book of that title. Langland-Hassan offers a theory of “attitude imagining” that avoids positing what he calls a “sui generis cognitive attitude.” This theory attempts to explain things like pretend play, hypothetical reasoning, and cognition of fiction; to explain them using only (what he calls) more “basic” mental states like beliefs and desires; and thus to explain them without positing a distinct cognitive attitude of (...) imagining, as many theorists do (including me). In other words, “attitude imagining,” for Langland-Hassan, is whatever explains those things (except for a distinct cognitive attitude of imagining itself). Despite the theoretical interest of this approach, I argue it is ontologically pennywise and pound foolish: for a slight savings in ontological complexity it dramatically reduces explanatory power. (shrink)

It is a characteristic feature of our mental make-up that the same perceptual input situation can simultaneously elicit conflicting mental perspectives. This ability pervades our perceptual and cognitive domains. Striking examples are the dual character of pictures in picture perception, pretend play, or the ability to employ metaphors and allegories. I argue that traditional approaches, beyond being inadequate on principle grounds, are theoretically ill equipped to deal with these achievements. I then outline a theoretical perspective that has emerged from a (...) theoretical convergence of perceptual psychology, ethology, linguistics, and developmental research. On the basis of this framework, I argue that corresponding achievements are brought forth by a specific type of functional architecture whose core features are as follows: (1) a perceptual system that is biologically furnished with a rich system of conceptual forms, (2) a triggering relation between the sensory input and conceptual forms by which the same sensory input can be exploited by different types or systems of conceptual forms, and (3) computational principles for handling semantically underspecified conceptual forms. Characteristic features of the proposed theoretical framework are pointed out using the Heider–Simmel phenomenon as an example. (shrink)

To imagine is to form a mental representation that does not aim at things as they actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than one’s own. Unlike perceiving and believing, imagining something does not require one to consider that something to be the case. Unlike desiring or anticipating, imagining something does not require one to wish or expect that something (...) to be the case. // -/- Imagination is involved in a wide variety of human activities, and has been explored from a wide range of philosophical perspectives. Philosophers of mind have examined imagination’s role in mindreading and in pretense. Philosophical aestheticians have examined imagination’s role in creating and in engaging with different types of artworks. Epistemologists have examined imagination’s role in theoretical thought experiments and in practical decision-making. Philosophers of language have examined imagination’s role in irony and metaphor. // -/- Because of the breadth of the topic, this entry focuses exclusively on contemporary discussions of imagination in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the origins and specificity of the recent research trend on the development in children of a Theory of mind which has undergone an impressive expansion over past the fifteen years. A comparison with Piaget's approach is proposed regarding the experimental data available on the coordination of perspectives as well as the epistemological foundations. The issues of the naturalization of the mind and its irreducibility are addressed within the framework of recent reductionist theories advanced by the philosophers of (...) mind. Piaget's contribution is considered as one of the most thorough of this century. (shrink)

Text představuje aktivní role-playing jako výzkumnou experimentální metodu v sociálních vědách. Zasazuje role-playing do rámce simulačních výzkumných metod, rozkrývá jeho epistemo- logii a dosavadní metodologická uchopení zejména v sociální psychologii. Hlavní linií textu je obhajoba epistemologických kvalit metody a experimentu v sociálních vědách obecně. Inspiračním zdrojem je zde na jedné straně Latourova kvalitativní sociologie asociací, tázající se po původu sociality a problematizující samotný před- mět sociálních věd, tj. sociálno. A na druhé straně přístupy naturalizující sociálně- vědné výzkumy propojením s kognitivní (...) vědou. V tomto ohledu je naším klíčovým předpokladem pro smysluplné uchopení sociální reality v její simulované podobě shodnost kognitivních mechanismů skutečného i simulovaného jednání. V pojetí textu jsou oba zdroje spojeny jejich akcentem na tematizaci sociálna jako inter-psychologického fenoménu mezi tradiční mikro a makro úrovní. Analogií s Petriho miskou text promýšlí posunutí původní metody situační sociální psycho- logie směrem k využití konstruovaných diegetických liminálních situací jako svého druhu laboratoří sociálna. (shrink)

In two experiments, we investigated whether 13-month-old infants expect agents to behave in a way consistent with information to which they have been exposed. Infants watched animations in which an animal was either provided information or prevented from gathering information about the actual location of an object. The animal then searched successfully or failed to retrieve it. Infants’ looking times suggest that they expected searches to be effective when—and only when—the agent had had access to the relevant information. This result (...) supports the view that infants’ possess an incipient metarepresentational ability that permits them to attribute beliefs to agents. We discuss the viability of more conservative explanations and the relationship between this early ability and later forms of ‘theory of mind’ that appear only after children have become experienced verbal communicators. (shrink)

The question that motivates the central hypothesis advanced in this paper regarding the emergence of early religious thinking is the following: ‘why does religion need material culture?’ What basic functional or symbolic need renders material culture an indispensable and universal component of religion and ritual activity? A common temptation, obvious in a number of recent archaeological and anthropological studies, is to seek an answer in the field of memory (Boyer 1993; 1996; 1998; 2001; McCauley and Lawson 2002; Whitehouse 2000; 2004; (...) Mithen 1998a). This paper argues that material culture does much more than simply offer a symbolic channel for the externalization, communication, and thus successful cultural transmission, of religious ideas. Although the mnemonic significance of the ritual object is not denied, it is proposed that the argument from memory, as traditionally premised, fails to provide a cognitively adequate account of the complex affective ties and multimodal interactions that characterise the distinctive phenomenology of religious experience. Moreover, and from a long-term evolutionary perspective, it is argued that the commonly implied ontological priority of the religious idea, over its material expression, leaves us with no explanation about why,and how, religious concepts emerge in the context of human cognitive evolution. Drawing on the theoretical lines of the Material Engagement approach (Malafouris 2004; Renfrew 2004) I want to advance a different hypothesis that places material culture at the heart of the human capacity for religious thinking (cf. Day 2004). (shrink)

1. Introduction For philosophers, the current phase of the debate with which this volume is concerned can be taken to have begun in 1986, when Jane Heal and Robert Gordon published their seminal papers (Heal, 1986; Gordon, 1986; though see also, for example, Stich, 1981; Dennett, 1981). They raised a dissenting voice against what was becoming a philosophical orthodoxy: that our everyday, or folk, understanding of the mind should be thought of as theoretical. In opposition to this picture, Gordon and (...) Heal argued that we are not theorists but simulators. For psychologists, the debate had begun somewhat earlier when Heider (1958) produced his work on lay psychology; and in more recent times the psychological debate had continued in developmental psychology and in work on animal cognition. (shrink)

Imitation and mirroring processes are necessary but not sufficient conditions for children to develop human sociality. Human sociality entails more than the equivalence and connectedness of perceptual experiences. It corresponds to the sense of a shared world made of shared values. It originates from complex ‘open’ systems of reciprocation and negotiation, not just imitation and mirroring processes that are by definition ‘closed’ systems. From this premise, we argue that if imitation and mirror processes are important foundations for sociality, human inter-subjectivity (...) develops primarily in reciprocation, not just imitation. Imitation provides a basic sense of social connectedness and mutual acknowledgment of existing with others that are ‘like me.’ However, it does not allow for the co-construction of meanings with others. For human sociality to develop, imitation and mirroring processes need to be supplemented by an open system of reciprocation. Developmental research shows that from the second month, mirroring, imitative, and other contagious emotional responses are by-passed. Imitation gives way to first signs of reciprocation (primary intersubjectivity), joint attention to objects (secondary intersubjectivity), the emergence of values that are jointly represented and negotiated with others (tertiary intersubjectivity), and eventually the development of an ethical stance accompanying theories of mind by 4 years of age. We review this development and propose that if mirroring processes enable individuals to bridge their subjective experiences, human inter-subjectivity proper develops from reciprocal social exchanges that lead to value negotiation and mutual recognition, both cardinal trademarks of human sociality. (shrink)

Images share a common feature with all phenomena of imagination, since they make us aware of what is not present or what is fictional and not existent at all. From this perspective, the philosophical approach of Kendall Lewis Walton—born in 1939 and active since the 1960s at the University of Michigan—is perhaps one of the most notable contributions to image theory. Walton is an authoritative figure within the tradition of analytical aesthetics. His contributions have had a considerable influence on a (...) broad range of topics, such as the role of categories in the understanding of the arts (Walton, “Categories of Art”. Philosophical Review, 79(3): 334–367, 1970), the ambiguous nature of emotions in the experience of fictional stories (Walton, “Fearing Fictions”. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(1): 5–25, 1978), the transparency of photographic images compared to other depictions (Walton, “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism”. Noûs, 18(1): 67–72, 1984) and, above all, the development of a general theory of fiction as imaginative activity. His 1990 book Mimesis as Make-believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts collects and re-elaborates articles Walton published on the subject since the 1970s. Though he does not attempt to give a definitive answer for what imagination is, Walton thoroughly investigates its role in all cases of representational works, describing depictions as a specific case of “make-believe” activity: images, in short, are specific props of a visual and perceptual “make-believe” game. (shrink)

The discovery of so-called ‘mirror neurons’ - found to respond both to own actions and the observation of similar actions performed by others - has been enormously influential in the cognitive sciences and beyond. Given the self-other symmetry these neurons have been hypothesized as underlying a ‘mirror mechanism’ that lets us share representations and thereby ground core social cognitive functions from intention understanding to linguistic abilities and empathy. I argue that mirror neurons are important for very different reasons. Rather than (...) a symmetric ubiquitous or context- independent mechanism, I propose that these neurons are part of broader sensorimotor circuits, which help us navigate and predict the social affordance space that we meet others in. To develop both the critical and positive project I analyze the interpretive choices and the debate surrounding the mirror neuron research and show how the field is marred by highly questionable assumptions about respectively motor and social cognition. The discovery of mirror neurons - and the sensorimotor circuits of which these neurons are a part – actually empirically challenge many of these tacit assumptions. Findings of sensorimotor goal representations at levels of abstraction well beyond actual sensory information and kinetic movements challenge the idea of motor cognition as primarily output production. Additionally, the focus on 3rd person mindreading of hidden mental states is misguiding the field of social cognition. Much ‘mind-reading’ seems rooted in sensorimotor representations and a developmentally primary 2nd person understanding of actions and the mental lives of others, which precisely breaks the assumed dichotomy between mind and behavior. I propose a Social Affordance model where parallel fronto-parietal sensorimotor circuits support representations not just of other people’s actions but of the overall social affordance space. It is a process that monitors concrete goals and teleological possibilities that the environment affords respectively oneself and other present agents. With this model I hypothesize that the complex spectrum of sensorimotor integrations are indeed essential not only to normal action choice calibration but also to social cognitive abilities, as the sensorimotor teleological representations let us relate to others and understand their action choices in a shared pragmatic and intentional context. (shrink)

In this entry I will offer a systematic novel taxonomy of our imaginative abilities coherent with standard treatments in cognitive science, philosophy of mind and aesthetics. In particular, I will distinguish between the non-propositional imagination and the propositional imagination, which include several further sub-varieties such as the objectual imagination, imagery, experiential imagination, supposition, make-believe and more.

Nesta entrada irei apresentar uma nova taxonomia sistemática das nossas capacidades imaginativas, coerente com os tratamentos convencionais em ciência cognitiva, filosofia da mente e estética. Em particular, irei distinguir entre a imaginação não-proposicional e a imaginação proposicional, o que inclui ainda outras subvariedades, como a imaginação objectual, a imagética, a imaginação experiencial, a suposição, o faz-de-conta e outras.

This dissertation explores philosophical issues in autism and defends a new version of the enactive approach to autism and social cognition. The discussion in this dissertation centres around the question “why do autistics encounter social interaction problems?”, addressing this question in ways that raise broader philosophical issues. Within the philosophy of mind, these include the problem of other minds, the nature of emotions, and narratives and their role in understanding the self. Beyond cognition, such issues are intertwined with questions in (...) metaphysics, philosophy of science, sociopolitical and moral philosophy, and disability studies. In responding to the question “why do autistics encounter social interaction problems?”, I argue that autistic social interaction problems result from the sensorimotor differences between autistics and non-autistics. This contrasts with the response to this question given by widely-endorsed views that emphasize instead the cognitive deficits that autistic people have. Such cognitivist views, such as the theory theory and simulation theory, are the focus of my first two critical chapters. I go on to offer a critique of two approaches that go beyond the focus on mindreading in appealing to sensorimotor problems as lying at the heart of the problem. These views, interaction theory and the original enactive approach, are the focus of the next two chapters. I then turn to defend a novel form of the enactive approach in the last part of the dissertation by emphasizing the role of emotions as the capacity for us to make sense of the world and to construct the sense of self from narratives. My new approach shifts the explanatory focus from perception and motion to emotion. This maintains the advantage of the original enactive approach, while avoiding its behaviouristically limited descriptions. My account thus expands the theory’s capacity to describe and explain internal states important to self-understanding and self-expression. This allows one to approach autistic social difficulties by attending to the first-person perspective, cohering with my reliance on first-person autistic narratives as a major source of evidence that supplements traditional scientific research on autism. (shrink)

A survey of and a comparison of the relative strengths of two favored views of what theatrical performers do: pretend or engage in a variety of self-display. The behavioral version of the pretense theory is shown to be relatively weak as an instrument for understanding the variety of performance styles available in world theater. Whether pretense works as a theory of the mental capacities that underly theatrical performance is a separate question.