Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner’s movements need not be represented in relation to distinct, (...) incongruent proximal goals. Instead they can be represented in relation to a single proximal goal – especially if the movements are, or appear to be, mechanically linked to a more distal joint action goal. To test this, we implemented a paradigm in which participants produced finger movements that were either congruent or incongruent with those of a virtual partner, and either with or without a joint action goal (the joint flipping of a switch, which turned on two light bulbs). Our findings provide partial support for the hypothesis that visuomotor interference effects can be reduced when two physically incongruent actions are represented as mechanically interdependent contributions to a joint action goal. (shrink)

Our approach aims at accounting for causal claims in terms of how the physical states of the underlying dynamical system evolve with time. Causal claims assert connections between two sets of physicals states—their truth depends on whether the two sets in question are genuinely connected by time evolution such that physical states from one set evolve with time into the states of the other set. We demonstrate the virtues of our approach by showing how it is able to account for (...) typical causes, causally relevant factors, being ‘the’ cause, and cases of overdetermination and causation by absences. (shrink)

Natural Pedagogy refers to social learning based on ostensive communication between adults and infants which results in rapid and efficient transmission of cultural information. The theory predicts that children are able to recognize communicative intention when adults address them using ostensive signals. Furthermore, natural pedagogy predicts that infants ascribe the knowledge they have acquired to others according to what is called the “assumption of universality”. In other words, infants are able to ascribe informative contents to others even when they are (...) outside the bounds of the learning context. Although Csibra and Gergely have so far denied any type of relationship between natural pedagogy and mindreading capacities, I suggest that early mindreading capacities are components of the natural pedagogy system, as recent experimental findings on early Theory of Mind abilities appear to show. (shrink)